


We'll Go Together

by feyreofthewildfire



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Light Angst, Memory Alteration, Repressed Memories, Rhys has PTSD, here's to trying, honestly idk, i think this is gonna be okay, i've never written fanfic before, that one's complicated, the boys are technically foster brothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2018-12-20 00:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11909775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyreofthewildfire/pseuds/feyreofthewildfire
Summary: They eat and make conversation—well, she does most of the talking—on the floor of her living room, as if they’re simply two friends who’re seeing each other for the first time in a while.He supposes the analogy is at least partially true. Even though they’ve put it aside for the time being, his newly recovered memories continue to assault him. He can’t stop seeing her, in all the ways that she is now and the ways she was then.He can’t seem to reconcile the woman he loves with the one in front of him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> This is my first attempt at legitimate fanfiction. I'm not used to writing with characters that aren't mine, but I need to expand my horizons. Our High Lord and Lady, however, are a little different here so their personalities aren't exactly the same. 
> 
> Also: the title is definitely subject to change. Titles are not my forte and I apologize now if it changes every other day until I find one I'm satisfied with. 
> 
> Please enjoy :)
> 
> \- Jade

Perhaps he is a death god, as the humans say.

Clouds of black billow behind him as he walks, tailored finery covering him—and concealing the leathers, the swords, the _wings_ lost in another time, another place that is now nothing more but a distant memory. Whatever is left of that part of his life has been repressed in his mind.

A diadem of black raven’s feathers adorns his head, bringing a sense of regality to the tousle of his blue-black hair. Callouses of his upbringing have been washed away by magic into smooth, pristine hands that have never seen battle. The only thing he has left is a ring on a chain and the twinkling laugh of someone he knew he must have loved, if the warm feeling that spreads through him is to be believed.

He does not know his name. It faded away with the rest of him long ago.

He spends his nights wandering the world, a myth told by parents to scare their children into bed before He, no better than the boogeyman, comes to take them away in the soft-lit night.

Time is not a medium, wherever he is. It simply does not exist.

So he wanders.

He does not know what he is looking for, he does not know who put him here, or why they did, or how he can get home.

He learns that the clouds of black answer to him, that they will do whatever he commands. They become his sole companions, the only constant presence beside him in this purgatory.

On the worst nights, he turns them into stars above him and wishes.

When the sun begins to rise, he knows his time is up. He will be someplace else after the sun sets on the horizon.

He has never ended up at the same place twice.

 

-

 

_She is lovely._

It’s his first thought when he sees her.

Her golden brown hair is splayed across the sheets as she sleeps, looking almost red in the moonlight filtering through her half-shut blinds. Even breaths escape her as long lashes brush against her pale skin.

His eyes memorize the curve of her nose, the smallest smattering of freckles. The furrow in her brows seems permanently set in, as if even in sleep she cannot escape the worries of whatever life she leads.

He cannot bear to lower his eyes from her face, to study the rest of her. He is enthralled. Some part of him beats for her. He does not know what it says, the mantra it repeats, only that is for her, and her only.

When the sun rises and he is still there, he doesn’t notice until she wakes. Her eyes flutter open and she continues to lie in bed, picking up the phone beside her and mindlessly scrolling through it.

He has seen so many of these devices, and yet they’re unfamiliar to him. He knows they’re a way of communication. He’s seen many humans talk to one another on them, and yet they seem unnatural, strange.

He can only silently watch as she throws off the duvet and stands, but not before turning on some soft music. He can hear the soft plucking of strings and an equally soft, hypnotizing voice, but it is all unfamiliar to him. He’s not surprised. Very little of this world has ever been familiar to him.

He averts his eyes as she changes, something he’s never bothered with before. Bodies were bodies, and he found that humans did not treat theirs with the respect he believed in.

And, yet, some part of him didn’t think his own body deserved the same respect.

He shakes his head, attention brought back to the girl as she exits the room, though leaving the door open behind her. He quickly follows her, gliding along on a cascade of stars and dark sky behind her.

He almost crashes into her as she suddenly stops, turning her head and staring straight at him. A curious, perplexed expression crosses her face, setting off bells in his head, but she only shakes her head before entering the room they’d stopped in front of.

He is surrounded by paintings. Beautiful, mesmerizing paintings.

His feet glide to the closest one, a hand reaching out to trace the colors. It’s a beautiful waterfront, a river surrounded by brightly lit lanterns and lively buildings. Silhouettes of people fill the negative space, leaving him with an ache in his chest he doesn’t recognize. He moves on.

This time the painting is of two males, covered head to toe in black leather—armor—that strikes the same nostalgic chord within him. Stones of deep color are set in the armor on the backs of their hands. The one with the red stones grins, long hair loose and brushing his shoulders. The one with the blue stones bears a stoic look on his face, but something about him seems relaxed, at ease. Great, membranous wings spread from their backs.

Something within him changes, a new pain echoing in his head. He hisses and raises a hand to his temples, eyes closing. Images flash under his lids: the man with the long hair sparring with him, a blonde woman laughing loudly, the man with the blue stones unsheathing a short knife, a woman with sharply cut black hair accepting a ornate piece of jewelry.

And finally… the woman in front of him. Images of her laughing, of her dancing beside him, of lying in bed together, of the arch of her body beneath his. His arm wrapped around her as they healed the tear in the fabric their world, the last of his power sliding away from him as he collapses.

His eyes fly open, swiveling back to where she sits, oblivious and unknowing, mixing various shades of greys and purples on her palette. Every part of him wants to go to her, to reach for her and beg for her to recognize him. He wonders, yet again, if he is even real, if this reality around him is nothing more than a dream he’ll wake up from soon. He wants it to be. He wants to recognize the world that flashed behind his eyes.

And then he sees the painting she’s working on. It’s incomplete, the shading rudimentary, but it’s enough.

It’s him.

He recognises the bright violet of his eyes, the black diadem set in his hair. He recognizes the tattoos peaking out from the collar of the shirt he wears. He recognizes the finery, the upturned collar of his jacket, the silver and gold embroidery of the sleeves, the long boots on his feet.

He doesn’t recognize the wings. He doesn’t recognize the smirk.

His feet fall beneath him, forcing him to stumble back. The grace he’s always carried himself with disappears, the sudden mantra he felt for her becoming clear.

_Mine._

_Mine._

_Mine._

_Mine._

He wants to drag her into his arms and never let go. He wants to feel her bare skin beneath his palms. He wants to lace his hands through the ones that delicate paint his features. He wants to bury his hands in her hair and lose himself in her. He wants her to be his. He wants to be hers. He _wants_.

He stumbles towards the wall and instead of falling through it, he crashes into it. Hard. The canvas of a sinister red-haired woman on a throne falls to the ground, causing the girl’s head to dart towards him. But she doesn’t scream, she doesn’t attack, she doesn’t run.

“I’m going insane. I have to be going insane.” She whispers, blinking once, then again as if he’s just a hallucination and will disappear. “You’re not real.”

“I-I don’t know,” he murmurs, just as shocked as she is. “I’ve never done that.”

He finds himself reaching for her, his hand stretching out as if to cradle her face. His feet take a tentative step towards her as his mind, unwittingly, reaches out towards her. There’s a familiarity in her that he’s never known. A long, coiled part of him relaxes simply at the sight of her. It tenses again when she steps away from him.

Of course. He should’ve known she wouldn’t remember.

And then he contemplates whether those images are fake, conjured by his mind after spending so much time, and yet not any at all, alone. Some part of his craves companionship, and perhaps that part has fabricated all the memories he think he has. The thought leaves a gaping hole in him.

And yet, he still asks her. “Do you not remember…?” His words are hesitant, as though she is a fawn easily scared. The part of him that recognizes her tells him she is not. But this is not the woman he knows, the woman he’s fallen in love with. Perhaps she looks like her, but she’s different. They’re different. Some parts of them have been lost in time and between worlds, never to be recovered.

She scoffs, “I’ve been dreaming about you since I was nineteen.” She shakes her head, eyes moving away from him to focus on the canvas that lies facedown on the ground. “I thought it was the fumes from when I tried spray painting.”

“Starfall.” The word falls from his lips before he can stop it, or even knows what it means. “Do you remember Starfall?” He advances another step, now gazing over her, but she doesn’t seem intimidated by his looming figure—not even fazed.

Her eyes shut, “We were standing on an overlook. A couple of the stars hit us, and it was the first time I had smiled in months.” She speaks as if it wasn’t a dream but a memory, and the hope in him renews. But her eyes snap open, focusing on him with a new clarity that wasn’t there before. “I loved you.”

He settles. There’s no other word for it. He’s been used to coming and going, day by day without the luxury of growing attached or growing familiar. Every part of him braces for the sunrise, when he will inevitably be whisked away to never be seen there again. But this is seems stable, permanent. The sun has risen and he is still here. The sun has risen and his is with her, and he finds that’s all that matters. Not the fact that she uses the past tense, not the fact that there is still a disbelieving gleam in her eye. He is still here. He is with her.

“It’s coming back to me, but—” He sighs in frustration, “—but I still don’t remember most of it. I’m sorry.”

She lets out a slow exhale. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”

“We?” He questions gently, unbelieving that she’s so willing to help him—a man she thought only  existed in her dreams, suddenly real and tangible.

Her eyes harden, a silent but fierce determination in them. He finds it painfully familiar. “I want to figure out what’s going on and what higher forces are playing with us, “ she hesitates, “and I want to remember what we used to be.”

“Then it’s a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side Notes:  
> I used Taratjah's drawing of Rhys as a reference for Feyre's painting, it's beautiful sigh.  
> I based the description of Az and Cass's painting off of the colouring book.  
> I based Amarantha's painting off of the colouring book as well.  
> I made up the description for the Rainbow 100% on the spot aha.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They talk, and he does something for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> I'll be completely real with you guys, I'm freeballing with this plot. I was gonna leave it as a one shot and then the muse told me I should write more, but not what I should write. It happens a lot with me.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy this filler chapter while I scramble together a half-decent but likely still trashy plot for the rest of this likely to be less than 20k word story :)
> 
> \- Jade

_If we go down_

_Then we'll go down together_

_They'll say you could do anything_

_They'll say that I was clever_

 

_-_

 

They leave her studio, all the depictions of different people and places giving him a headache. He hadn’t realized it before, but her apartment is painfully threadbare. It’s a minimal design, but he notices the unopened moving boxes stacked in the corner of the kitchen. He fights the rising questions in him and the small worry. He’s hidden away the pieces of night that always follow him, even if it leaves him feeling exposed and unbalanced. The shadows had been with him for so long, he didn’t feel like himself with them.

She leads him over to the small kitchenette, motioning to a chair behind the counter before grabbing two mugs out of one of the boxes and pressing a few buttons on what he recognizes to be a coffee machine on the opposite side. His eyes focus on her, on the fluid way she moves with an ease and assurance he envies. He almost misses her extending a black mug towards him.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, taking the hot mug from her hands. It’s comforting, grounding in a way he doesn’t know. For so long, he’s been unable to touch and feel. The tangibility of his surroundings is jarring but long awaited. He’s found that many things he thought was once unattainable are now in front of him. Familiarity, memories, and sunlight are all things he’s never experienced before. He nearly cries in awe every time he glances at the window.

He only watches as she sits across from him with her own mug, eyes falling onto her hands. There’s a strange discoloration on the ring finger of her left hand, something akin to a tan line, but it’s nearly invisible to the naked eye. It tugs at some string in his heart, a part of him _knowing_ that there’s something missing there. He’s dragged from his thoughts when she speaks.

“What do you remember?” She asks, head tilted to the side in an inquisitive way. For a moment, he doesn’t hear what she says, only seeing the small remnants of paint from the days past on the sweater she wears. It’s obviously old and well-loved, the color a mundane cream that shouldn’t mean anything to him. It does. It triggers something.

He closes his eyes, a new vision behind them. “It’s cold. Freezing. I’m pounding on the door to a cabin and it opens, with you on the other side.” His eyes open. “You’re wearing a sweater almost identical to the one you are now, but you’re covered in paint.”

Her brows furrow at his words, grip tightening around her mug. “I was… mad at you. You had lied to me about something and I ran. You came after me.” She recalls, though the words are shaky and unsure. “Most of my dreams are snippets—maybe thirty seconds—of various, connected things. I’ve never seen the same one twice.”

“What do you dream of?” He asks, leaning forward over the counter. He’s enraptured by her—or perhaps by what she symbolizes. He’s not sure whether he wants to be with her because of these supposed memories, or because he’s beginning to feel something for this version of her.

He shouldn’t cling to these visions, he knows. Maybe they were real once upon a time, but they’re not now. The world they inhabit is different. They’re different. He has to keep reminding himself that he can’t reach over the counter and kiss her, or run his hands through her hair. He can’t pull her into his lap and breathe her in. She’s not his.

“Usually a cycle of some different people. One of my friends, Mor; two males with wings, a woman with silver eyes, and you are the most common. Occasionally I’ll see my ex-fiance, his best friend and my sisters, but those are uncommon.” She shrugs, seemingly in indifference, but he can see the tension in her shoulders.

“Do you know my name?” The question is soft, almost silent in the bare apartment.

 _Rhysand_ …

He jumps, the mug tipping over and spilling the hot liquid on the counter. It’s her voice, he knows it, but she hadn’t spoken. At least, not aloud. He stands from his seat, palms balancing him on the counter as another onslaught of memories assault him. It’s too much all at once, overwhelming him within moments. His mind can’t comprehend all that’s been thrown at it. He knows he blocks some of the memories that attempt to resurface—though he doesn’t understand how. But one comes to the forefront, a singular word that reverberates through him.

_Feyre?_

He answers, wondering whether he’s gone insane or not. Perhaps this is a fever dream he’s having in the daylight hours between night visits, a way for his mind to cope with the detachment he has to everything around him. He’s starting to believe it, that perhaps he’s truly gone crazy from loneliness now.

He doesn’t notice that she’s circled the counter until she hesitantly brushes her fingertips against his own. “Rhysand?” The word—the name—rolls off her tongue, as if she’s meant to say it. There’s a cadence to it that instantly relaxes him, his tensed shoulders falling as his hand seeks out hers, gently lacing together their fingers against the countertop—like she gravitates towards him the same way he does towards her. “Hey,” she raises her other hand and nudges his chin to get him to look at her, “what did you see?”

“I just remembered your name, Feyre.” He smiles softly, the two syllables on his lips feeling more natural than any other word he’s ever known. His smile turns sad, “I think I blocked anything else. I’ve been overwhelmed with all these memories and I think my head has had enough.” He tries to joke, he really does, but he knows it falls flat when she only frowns, a worried expression crossing her face. “I’m okay,” he placates, “I think I need a break from new memories while I process the ones I just got back.”

Her frown only deepens, but she nods. He knows she won’t push him, and for that he’s grateful. He changes the subject, “What have you been doing in this life?” He hopes that she’s happy, at the very least. He hopes she’s happier than in the snippets of the Feyre from before he’s recovered.

“Well, I just moved.” She gestures loosely around them to the bareness of it all. “My ex-fiance and I had a falling out. My sister, Elain, is helping me with the first few months of rent while I get back on my feet.” A smile crosses her face at the mention of her sister, and another memory slashes through his mind.

“How’s Nesta?” The question escapes him before he can contemplate the gravity of his words, if the question he asks will be wrong. He knows it is when her eyes screw shut, a deep pain crossing her face. She takes a step back, fingers untangling from his own as she pinches the bridge of her nose.

“She’s… trying. Tomas has her under lock and key, even stuck a bodyguard on her. She’s still fighting—she’s Nesta after all—but his father has a lot of political power and could completely decimate our lives. She’s talking with another lawyer, but there’s not much we can do for her across the country.” A deep sigh escapes her, “How’d you know about her?”

He shrugs, “Another memory.”

She simply nods, eyes trained on what he knows the be the clock to his right. She moves away and back to the other side of the counter, pouring her untouched drink into a thermos. He figured that she’d have to leave—most humans had jobs after all—but he had hoped she wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry to leave you here, but I have a bunch of middle schoolers to teach calligraphy to.” There’s a genuinely apologetic look on her face.

“It’s alright, I get it.” And he does. Really. This world, and all of them he supposed, revolved around money. Based on her earlier comments about her sister helping her with the rent, he was positive that she needed to work that day. The Feyre he remembered didn’t like owing debts, even if it was to the people she loved. It seemed that at least had remained in this version of her.

He only watches as she slips on a jacket and shoes, the movements jerky and hesitant, at odds with the way he remembers her. Almost everything about her seems at odds with the way he remembers her. He knows that he should let that version go, that he should begin to introduce himself to this version of her, but he can’t. He clings onto the few complete memories he has of whatever he was before this, and all of them include her.

When the door shuts behind her, he can only turn to the untouched boxes and thrift shop furniture with a determination that sinks into his bones.

 

-

 

He’s setting the last book on the shelf when the tumblers in the lock begin to click. Instantly, he tenses, the powers that he’s honed awakening, poised to attack. When the door opens to reveal her, he only tenses even more—though for a different reason now.

“I hope you don’t mind.” He says hesitantly as her eyes sweep over the apartment, now filled with the various knickknacks that he had found in the boxes. “I didn’t touch anything in your bedroom, but I figured since I’m invading your space that I’d at least help you settle into it.”

He hadn’t done much, really, just placed the minimal kitchenware in the cabinets and shelved the three boxes of books. She didn’t have too many personal effects, at least not in the boxes he’d opened, but he’d gleaned a few things from her choice in literature, but mainly her need to escape the life she led.

He prides himself on the pleasantly surprised look on her face as she turns to look at him. Her feet carry her over to where he stands next to the bookshelf, lovingly running her fingers over the beat-up, secondhand books that had taken him more time than he cared to admit to organize.

“Thank you,” the words are quiet, in disbelief. “You didn’t have to do this, it’s alright.”

“I wanted to.” His answer is simple, and he finds that it’s true. He genuinely wants to help her, in any way he can. She deserves it.

She clears her throat, “I brought takeout—I hope you don’t mind Chinese. I usually just eat with the kids. I have a planning hour right after lunch today. No one’ll notice if I take a long lunch.” She picks up the paper bag of takeout that she had set on the coffee table in awe, opening it and pulling out little paper boxes filled with what he knows to be the worst and best kind of food.

He only watches as she sits on the carpet, leaning her back against the couch she’s neglected to sit on. Amusement spikes through him for a moment, causing him to sit on the floor opposite to her. They eat and make conversation—well, she does most of the talking—on the floor of her living room, as if they’re simply two friends who’re seeing each other for the first time in a while.

He supposes the analogy is at least partially true. Even though they’ve put it aside for the time being, his newly recovered memories continue to assault him. He can’t stop seeing her, in all the ways that she is now and the ways she was then.

He can’t seem to reconcile the woman he loves with the one in front of him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her walls starts to permanently fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> I'm happy to report that I have most of the plot figured out. That also mean that there's actual plot development in this chapter. Yay!!
> 
> It was really fun to write from the omniscient perspective of Feyre. I'll probably bounch back and forth between their perspectives for this story, but we'll see. The muse controls me more than I control the muse aha.
> 
> Happy reading!
> 
> \- Jade

_I gotta say, it’s hard to be brave_

_When you’re alone in the dark_

_I told myself that I wouldn’t be scared_

_But I’m still having nightmares_

 

_-_

  


They’d settled into a comfortable routine by the end of the first week. She’d shown him around the small city that she called home and he had seemed to like it. He’d taken residence on her couch for now, always brushing off her apologies as he did.

He’d found ways to occupy the time she spent at work, usually taking her library card and heading to the public library a mile or two away after he’d finished most of the books on her shelf—he had jokingly refused to read the cliché romances she sometimes took pleasure in—or just running errands that she hadn’t found the time for.

It was still so strange, the way he had suddenly appeared, the way she gravitated towards him. The holes in her life seemed to have filled with him. Tamlin had once filled those same holes, providing and caring for her, but in the end he had only left bigger ones.

She was hesitant to let him in. She could barely take the way he looked at her—with an utter adoration and hopelessness she couldn’t stand. She knew enough to remember that they’d been in love in whatever world she dreamed of, but it didn’t change that she didn’t know him. It didn’t change that she still wanted him.

He’s easily become one of her best friends, even battling Mor for the title, but the part of her that remembers wants more with him—wants to fall into his arms and drag his lips to meet her own. It’s the part she stifles, the part she suffocates so heavily that she can barely keep herself from kissing him when he does something that reconciles with the dreams—the recovered memories—she has of him.

The urge becomes harder to push away every time he looks at her.

 

-

 

In the five nights he’d been there, her dreams had gotten both longer and worse. The red-haired woman she had tried—and miserably failed—to paint appeared every time, every night now. She’d wanted to tell him, but the look on his face when she had stored away the canvas of the woman he’d accidentally knocked down told her enough. Whatever memories of her he’d recovered had likely been as pleasant as her own. She didn’t want to unload that on him.

Perhaps that decision was what had led them to this point.

She’s dreaming. She _knows_ she’s dreaming. It still seems too real.

She’s in the throne room of the underground citadel that her dreams have taken place in since he's appeared. She can’t hear what they’re saying, but the pain radiating through her tells her enough. This is her end. This is where she dies.

There’s fire licking not through her veins but her bones, charring them from the inside out as they crack from the heat. She can feel herself screaming, her vocal chords violently slamming together in her throat, but she can’t hear it. There’s a blaring white noise that blocks all her senses except the pain that’s become a part of her. This is it. There’s no coming back.

Her vision is a blur, but it focuses only long enough to see a black smudge hurl itself towards her tormentor on the black throne. She knows who it is.

It’s Rhysand. It’s always Rhysand.

The woman doesn’t even bother to look as a blast of power launches him back, slamming him into the floor. She wants to call out to him, but she can’t. The memory has her in a vice grip that she can't escape.

It hurts. It hurts. She can’t breathe.

She watches as a man with long blonde hair—Tamlin, she recognizes—pleads to the woman, holding a hand drenched in blood over his heart. She sees that his mouth is moving, but she can’t hear the words that escape it.

Her back arches off the floor and cracks. She screams again.

There are hands on her arms, on her shoulders, on her face. They’re not from the woman on the throne, whose only granted her pain, nor are they from Tamlin, who still clenches the spot where his heart is. Her body thrashes, the touch unwelcome. It all hurts.

The muscles in her jaw move, words rasping from her as blood chokes her lungs. For a moment her vision clears, only for the black that had curled around the edges to come in farther. She watches Tamlin’s eyes widen.

Then her neck snaps.

A strangled gasp snaps from her throat as her eyes open, finally having been released from the nightmare. Her eyes open to his violet ones over her, a wild concern in them that she both does and doesn’t recognize.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. She’s gone.” The words barely register with her as she lurches forward and into a sitting position, nearly banging her forehead into his chin if not for his quick reflexes.

She can’t breathe. Her vision is still hazy.

All the instincts, the memories she’d been suppressing rise to surface and she can’t stop as she throws herself into his arms, entire body shaking. She fails to notice the veil of stars he’s thrown over them, the first time he shows her any inkling of the powers from her dreams.  She fails to notice the second strain of darker, haunted night intertwined with his own, even as it ebbs away with her nightmare. He cradles her to his clothed chest, intertwining them in a way that’s so achingly familiar to her. So many things about him are familiar.

She’s ashamed of the small whimpers that leak from her lips, but no tears fall from her eyes. She lets herself go—just for now—and relishes in the arms he wraps around her and the quiet, placating words he whispers in her ear.

 

-

 

When she wakes in the morning and there’s a noticeably cold, empty divot on the other side of the bed, she can’t bring herself to care.

She finds him in the kitchen nursing a mug of her favorite coffee and reading yet another book. He’s changed into another miscellaneous black t-shirt and sweatpants. They’d bought him a few secondhand things a couple of days before, and she hated to admit how much she liked him in them. Her eyes trace the bits of his tattoo that peek out from the sleeves and stop at his elbow, wishing not for the first time what it looked like in its entirety. When she’d asked, he’d just smiled and made a joke about her asking him to take off his shirt.

He’d been all smiles and bad, borderline flirty jokes since they’d had Chinese on the floor that first time. She’s not sure what changed, but she finds that she prefers this version of him. The quiet, shaken man she’d met the first day hasn’t appeared since and she wishes for him to stay away. He’s happy even in their less than ideal circumstances.

He glances up from his page to wish her a good morning, a smile on his face that makes her forget the events of the night before. It’s her first day off since he’d appeared, and they make light, easy conversation that has no rush to it. She mindlessly pours her coffee and makes a slice of toast through their talk, her mind completely occupied by him even as she's turned away from him.

She’d told herself as she was lying in bed that morning that she’d go back, that she _could_ go back. That she could resurrect the walls she’d completely knocked down for him in the aftermath of her nightmare with ease. She knows she’s only lying to herself.

She finally settles opposite of him, telling yet another story from the wine and canvases she does on the weekends featuring yet another woman who’d had too many mimosas. The merry laugh that falls from him is enough to make her smile, something she hadn’t thought she’d do for a long time a week ago, even if it’s just a small upturn of her lips.

It falls when there’s a distinct knock on the front door.

She’d forgotten. How could she have forgotten?

Her eyes fall on him, expecting him to look like a deer in headlights. Instead, he’s already standing, body pivoted towards the door in a way that only comes from instinct. He’s sensed a threat, and he’s turned to defend her. From what she’s remembered of him, the action is enough to make her heart heavy again. Even in this new life, the instincts born of pain and battle remain.

He doesn’t move as she circles the counter and places a gentle, hesitant hand on one of his broad shoulders. “It’s alright. I know who it is.” Some of him relaxes at her words, but not enough. The walls she’d brought down the night before crack a little more. "Hey," the hand on his shoulders moves to cradle his jaw, “it’s okay.” She tells him again, even as the knocking commences once again, this time a little more insistent. He nods at her words and sits down once again, grabbing his coffee, but he doesn’t turn his back to the door. She would’ve been surprised if he had.

Her hand falls away as she walks towards the door, unlocking and opening it without even bothering to check who’s on the other side. She barely moves out of the way fast enough for the whirlwind that is her best friend to breeze into her apartment.

“Every building here looks the same, it took me five minutes to navigate all of them and then I had to climb three flights of stairs because your elevator is broken.” Mor turns first towards the living room, not seeing him sitting at the counter. He’s staring at her with a perplexed expression, identical to the one he gives to most of her paintings. “You’re already unpacked?”

She clears her throat, “Yeah. I had some help.” She says this as Mor finally notices him. A stricken look crosses her face, one that she’s never seen before, only to disappear as quickly as it appears.

“What’s a stranger I’ve never heard of doing sitting in your kitchen?” There’s a strange wariness in the question, at odds with the bubbliness that she’s always associated with the blonde.

His eyes are trained on her now, an unrelenting confidence in them that she can come up with a reason for his presence. The faith is new, something she’s not used to having, but it gives her what she needs to sell the half-baked story that she comes up with on the spot. “This is Rhysand. He’s an old friend who needed a place to crash for a bit. He’s the one who helped me settle in.” She gestures loosely around them.

There’s a pain in Mor’s eyes that she’s never seen as she stares at the man who's retreated back into his book and coffee. A sudden thought occurs to her—what if Mor was having the same dreams? The Mor from her recovered memories was darker than the one she knew, even with the light she still possessed.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” The usual merriness in Mor’s tone unsuccessfully trying to mask the panic in it now. “Alone?”

“Of course.” She doesn’t say it with the confidence that she should, a wariness she’s never known around Mor rising to the surface.

She leads her into her bedroom, softly shutting the door behind them. She swears she can _feel_ him pacing in the living room, confusion and realization warring in him. She has to shake her head and close her eyes to get the feeling to disappear, the weird sensation shoved in the box labeled ‘Things to Look Into’ that she’s chucked in the back of her mind.

“What did you want to talk about?” She asks Mor, who’s sat herself on the edge of her bed.

“I had a cousin named Rhysand.” The words are hesitant, an old pain accompanying them. “He died in a car crash seven years ago. He looked exactly like that Rhysand sitting in your kitchen.”

She blinks, “Haha. Very funny.” But she doesn’t, can’t, say it with the conviction she needs. She can’t tell Mor that Rhysand is the literal personification of all the dreams she’s been having since she met the blonde. She can’t tell Mor about the memories that have assaulted her since he appeared. Well, she supposes that she could, but she doesn’t want her best friend suggesting they go talk to a oneirologist again.

“Feyre, I’m not joking.” Mor’s words hold a heaviness that she’s never heard before, much like most of the tones she’s heard today in general. “Same build, same tattoos, same eyes. They’re identical.”

She’s forced to make a choice now, one she doesn’t want to make without him. But there’s no out. She can either lie to Mor about what has quickly become one of the most important things in her life or tell her the truth and hope that she doesn’t try to commit her to a mental institution. Both are gambles, and she’s never liked betting.

It’s too late now. She’s all in.

“Do you remember those dreams I told you about a few years ago?” She asks her, rubbing her thumb against her pointer and middle fingers in a nervous tic she’d developed from twirling her paint brushes.

Mor’s eyes widen, “Actually, that was what I was gonna talk to you about today.” Her eyes flick over to the doorway, as if expecting him to just stroll into the room. She lowers her voice, “I’ve been having these… flashbacks all week. I’ll be doing something completely normal and then I’ll get these memories that aren’t mine, but they seem like mine. The thing is that they seem a lot like those dreams you used to tell me about.”

“Can you tell me about them?” She asks Mor a bit too eagerly. There’s something much bigger going on than the two of them—and now it seems to involve Mor. She should’ve guessed that after he had appeared, but she was hesitant to link her best friend to what she'd half-thought to be a vivid hallucination.

Mor’s eyes unfocus from her, obviously trying to recollect one of her so-called flashbacks. “I’m sitting against a wall somewhere and it’s fall. There’s a stinging pain in my abdomen and my vision is all fuzzy. Then a guy with these huge, black wings walks toward me.” Her eyes focus again. “That’s the most recent one. I got it right before I left to come over here.”

She latches on her wrist and drags her towards her studio, throwing open the door and leading them over to the canvas of the two males with the stones on their hands. “Did he look like one of them?”

The shocked look on Mor’s tells her everything she needs to know, even before she speaks. “Yeah, the one with the short hair.” The blonde whips her head back to look at her. “What’s going on?”

She can’t keep the relieved smile off her face, even if it only lasts for a moment before reality sets in. “Something bigger than us. Rhysand and I aren’t sure what it is, but I’m pretty sure you’re apart of it.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They learn a little more. She realizes something.

_ I got fire under my feet _

_ And I feel it in my heartbeat _

_ Oh, you can’t put out these flames _

_ You can’t keep me down in my seat _

 

-

 

They’ve all migrated into the living room now, the two of them taking up residence on the small couch and Mor on the armchair. She wishes that he’d taken the armchair instead; she can’t think straight with him this close. She clutches the notebook she’s brought with her tightly in her hands, if only to keep them from reaching for his. She finds herself wishing that the spa day they were going to have hadn’t been cancelled for this. 

Mor can’t seem to look him straight in the eye, not that she can blame her. If she had met a stranger that looked exactly like her hypothetical dead cousin, she’d be just as freaked out. 

She clears her throat, “We’ve been writing down all the things we can definitively remember in this notebook. We’ve only been able to connect a few things, but if what I think is true then these flashbacks you’re having are all apart of it to.” She leaves out the part where one of the things they’ve connected is that the two of them were madly in love in their past life, and that the version of Mor from before was a bit more bruised than the one she knew. 

The three of them spend the next few hours on the couch, her legs eventually ending up in his lap when she angles herself towards the sunlight to sketch out a few faces. It’s not long after high noon that the raging headaches set in. Mor excuses herself to leave and grab some ibuprofen for all of them from the boxes in her bathroom, leaving the two of them alone for a few moments.

“What are you thinking?” She asks him, setting her notebook aside at the thoughtful look on his face. He’d been half-mindedly drawing circles on her clothed calves for the better part of an hour, and she’s both surprised and not to find that she’s disappointed when he stops to answer her.

“I think that we need to find the rest of them.” He states simply, gesturing to the three sketches she had done that were lying on the table, ripped out from the notebook. They were of the two males from her painting and the woman with the razor sharp black bob. They’d all been constant presences in their newly acquired memories, and since the three of them were real, they had figured that the others had to be too. 

“Do you remember when I threw my shoe at you?” She blurts out the question before she can contemplate it. She knows now what had happened before that shoe-throwing, and she’s not sure she’s ready to discuss it yet. She curses her traitorous mouth.

He only grins, entire face lighting up, “Hard to forget. I’d just saved you from that god-awful wedding and you repaid me with a shoe to the back of the head. Hardly what I’d call a thank you.”

To be fair, she hadn’t  _ asked _ him to save her from that wedding. She couldn’t even remember what exactly he had saved her from, anyways. All she remembered was the ridiculous dress and the satisfyingly shocked look on his face.

“You did ask me. Just not out loud.”

She knows she doesn’t jump ten feet in the air, but it feels like it does. The new fact brings another round of memories flooding in, ones that make her headache even worse. She winces, “Bad time for new memories, Rhys.” The nickname rolls off her tongue, and by the widening of his eyes and the way he stills she can tell it brings another slew of memories for him too. Serves him right. 

“Sorry,” he apologizes after he recovers. “I thought you remembered and just hadn’t mentioned it yet. I didn’t mean to push you.”

“It’s alright,” in a split-second decision she regrets almost immediately, she takes one of his hands in hers and squeezes it once, dropping it after the deep sense of want that she’s buried resurfaces. Bad idea. Bad idea. 

Mor comes from the hall, shaking a bottle of ibuprofen as she does. “I found the drugs.” She jokes, tossing the bottle to him. He catches it out of midair with an effortlessness she envies. She’s by no means clumsy, but she wishes for the reflexes that her past self had. He’s seemed to retain his own in this life.

“Sorry to leave you both, but I have to go.” Mor smiles apologetically, already gathering her things. “If I remember anything else, I’ll text.” She adds, slipping on her shoes next to the door. “Breakfast date next week?”

She just nods, “Of course. I won’t forget this time.” With that Mor leaves, the door shutting softly behind her. She turns back to him and almost immediately looks away.

Even now, she can’t take the way he looks at her. It evolves and changes with each new wave of memories they both receive, and it seems this new wave has brought back the adoration she dreads the most. 

The look makes her want to leap into her arms and kiss him senseless yet again, but she can’t. She won’t. She owes Tamlin nothing, and yet… she gave him four years of her life—her short, mortal life. Every part of her heart still aches and throbs from all the pain of that relationship, all the guilt she still feels about leaving him when he needed her most. To move on so soon would disgrace the last four years of her life, no matter how pain-filled the latter of those years was. 

Perhaps it’s a silly excuse not to fall back in love with the man sitting opposite her, but it’s enough to stop her. 

“Do you want to go out or order in?” She asks him, standing from her spot on the couch, unable to be so close to him for any longer. Neither of them possess any ability to cook, but for the first time she wishes she did. He’s always impossibly tense when they go out.

He gives her the same response he always does, “Whatever you want.”

Even though it’s only been a week, she knows better than to try and wrestle an opinion out of him. If there’s anyone else in the world that’s more stubborn than her—a feat that many people in her life had thought impossible—it’s him. 

“Delivery it is,” she decides. It takes her a moment to find her phone, the one that Tamlin had gifted her not even a year ago, only to remember that she’d left it on her bedside table. Her feet carry her into the bedroom and over to her plugged-in phone—over to twenty-three missed calls from Nesta.

Every muscle in her body tenses. 

She slowly swipes one of the notifications, raising the phone to her ear with a shaky hand. Nesta never calls. She can’t. She hasn’t called in nearly a year. Something’s wrong. She knows it.

“Feyre?” There’s a concerned, male voice on the other end. She doesn’t notice him enter the room, having sensed her worry through whatever remnants of their bargain carried over into this world. 

“This is she.” Miraculously, her voice doesn’t shake.

“Hi, uh, this is Cassian. I’m a friend of Nesta’s and she-” He stops, and she feels her breath stop with him, “-she’s in the hospital. It’s bad. I can pay for the plane ticket and stuff, but you need to get out here as soon as you can. It’s not good.”

The phone falls out of her hands, only to be caught by his. She’s frozen in place, mouth slightly ajar in horror as she raises a slow hand to cover it. She knew she should’ve tried harder to get in touch with her sister. She  _ knows _ that whatever’s happened is Tomas’ fault. 

She barely notices when he wraps an arm around her and folds her into his chest, talking into her phone with words that don’t register. Her head finds its way into the crook of his neck, her arms wrapping around him and clutching him to her. She needs to call Elain. She needs to get a plane ticket. There are so many things she needs to do, but she can’t move. She can’t think. All she can focus on is the sweeping motions of his hand across her lower back, slow and soothing. Her shoulders shake, but no tears fall from her eyes. 

She only looks up when he addresses her. “Feyre, darling, we need to go.”

A fire she had long thought dead reignites in her. 

She shoves the horror and the sinking feeling in her stomach away, focusing on what she can do for her sister. “Would you pack a bag for me? I need to call Elain.” She asks him, backing out of the tempting circle of his arms. 

He nods and hands her back her phone, eyes following her as she leaves the room. She trusts him enough to go through her drawers, she realizes as she clicks on Elain’s contact, something she’d never granted anyone else. 

She pushes that thought into the same corner of her mind. 

Her call to Elain is quick, even though her older sister collapses into tears on the other side. Someone else—Azriel—picks up her sister’s phone and addresses her. He promises her that her sister will make it out across the country. She hangs up not long after that and shoves his name into the overflowing corner of her mind. She doesn’t have to time to contemplate how quickly her life has gone to hell, not with all the things happening around her.

She’s ordering an Uber when he exits her bedroom, a singular bag clutched in his hands. She blinks, “Aren’t you coming with?” It hadn’t occurred to her that he might stay behind. 

There’s a shocked look on his face for a moment, though it’s quickly washed away into stoicness. “Do you want me to?” He counters instead.

“Of course.” Her answer is instantaneous, and it seems to surprise them both. 

She’s been putting space between them in the past few days, and yet when the opportunity arises for her to get away, she denies it. Instead, she leans on him. 

“I’ll pack a bag then.” He saves her the trouble of explaining herself, though she wouldn’t be surprised if he had just  _ sensed _ her reasoning through their bargain. 

She takes the moment to sit on the couch and fiddle with her thumbs, contemplating the weight of her decision. The part of her that remembers  _ needs _ him, in a way that can’t be healthy. It craves his presence and his touch; he is water and air and everything it needs to survive. It’ll take on the world, as long as he’s there.

Then there’s the part of her from this life. The part that’s still wary of the stranger who’d simply appeared in her studio while she was painting him. It wants to push him away until it becomes clear  _ who  _ he is and  _ why  _ he’s here. It’s the part of her that’s still scorned by Tamlin; the part that doesn’t want to fall into the lull of a handsome stranger again. 

It’s not fair to him, the way she’s pushing and pulling. The need to decide weighs heavily on her, even though she knows in the back of her mind exactly what she’s going to pick. 

It’s just a matter of coming to terms with it. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's not okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> Just wanted to say that writing this chapter utterly broke my heart.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> \- Jade

_I promise, you will be fine_

_Got the universe on your side_

_When you’re out in space_

_Don’t be afraid_

_If you start floating away_

 

-

 

He hates the airport the moment they step into it.

There are too many people and they’re all too loud. His other set of powers has yet to return in this life, and until they do his mortal threat processing can’t cope with the amount of people surrounding them. He resists the urge, yet again, to pull her to his side so that he can protect her. He knows that most of the people in the room pose no threat whatsoever, and he knows that he’s being irrational, but the memories he’s slowly recovering of the underground prison tell him that everyone is a threat; that everyone around them can and will hurt them if he allows them to.

It doesn’t help that she hasn’t recovered her training or even most of her powers yet. He knows that she will, like he did, and that it’s only a matter of time before it happens, but until then she’s defenseless. Until then he has to protect her.

If she minds how close he stands to her, she doesn’t say anything. There’s been a far-off look in her eyes since he’d reappeared with his own bag to accompany her, one that tells him she’s focused on anything except their surroundings, even with the information about her sister looming over their heads. Her distractedness only raises his apprehension.

When they’re past security—which he decides he also doesn’t like—and she’s sitting down to wait for boarding, he chooses to lean against a windowed wall instead. At least this way he can see most of the room and his back isn’t exposed. She gives him a strange look, but he only shakes his head and pulls out the book he’d been reading before the blonde woman, Mor, had come over.

He finds quickly that he can’t read, not with the commotion. Every time someone enters his peripheral he has to look up and track them until he deems them harmless. Every time he takes his eyes off of her, he’s afraid she’ll be gone when he looks up again.

He hasn’t told her yet, about how he’s just beginning to fray at the edges. He’s hidden it under layers of flirty jokes and wide grins—just enough to embarrass her so that she doesn’t look too close. He knows the moment that she figures it out he won’t be able to keep it from her, and yet he doesn’t want to impose the dark parts of him on her light. So he deals with it himself.

Keeping his eyes open seems like a feat, given how he can’t sleep at night. It’s not even nightmares—memories—keeping him from getting sleep: it’s the fact that he can’t sleep at all, not when he’s trying to sort through all his memories, scribbling them down in the notebook she’d given him. It’s the only reason he’d been able to comfort her after her nightmare, besides the frayed bits left of their bond; he’d been awake, trying to sort out his head.

“You alright, soldier?”

His first instinct is to spin and pin them against the wall, until the words settle in, followed by the confusion. “What?”

He comes face to face with a man perhaps a decade older than he is—or rather, how he appears. He’s realized by now that he’s _much_ older than what was considered possible, given the memories that assault him in a constant stream.

The man nods his head in greeting, but doesn’t offer a hand. “Mark Holt. Served three tours in the Stan. How long have you been stateside?”

He realizes that the man, Mark, thinks he’s served. He’s not completely wrong, but he doesn’t think he can recount his war stories to the older man without being admitted to a mental institution. “Not long enough,” is the vague answer he gives instead.

Mark nods; not in sympathy, but in understanding. “You seeing anyone for the PTSD?”

The question jars him. PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. He should’ve made the connection. Dealing with it when he’d been a daemati (he thinks that’s the right word) had been easier, knowing that if he saw someone as a threat he could simply look into their mind and verify it. Without that crutch, he’s left to mortal devices. Without that crutch, he can’t cope.

“No.” The answer is quiet, almost ashamed. Without his second set of powers he’s been reduced to a sleepless, hyper-vigilant man. He’s not as strong as he thought he was.

“Rhys?” His head whips to where she’s gotten out of her seat, the little crinkle in her brow telling him she’s heard most of the conversation.

“Yes, darling?” The pet name rolls off his tongue. The urge to cringe and run razes through him, yet she doesn’t seem to mind—the only sign she even notices is the flush of her cheeks. It boggles him.

“We’re boarding.”

His eyes flick to the screen, where what she says rings true. “I’ll be right behind you.”

As she walks away he turns back to Mark, who looks passive. “That your girl?”

He scoffs, “It’s complicated.” Perhaps ‘complicated’ is oversimplifying it.

Mark nods again, in the same understanding way from before. “Being with someone after coming back is tough. I know a lot of men whose girls couldn’t cope with the way they changed and left them. I know just as many men who left their girls because they couldn’t cope.” He sighs, “What I’m trying to say is that the only way to uncomplicate it is to talk to her, whether it’s about the problems with her or in your head.”

He soaks up the man’s words, running over them a few times. He extends a hand towards him, “Thank you. I’ll take what you said to heart.”

Mark smiles, losing the stoic mask and shaking his hand. “That’s all I ask.”

They exchange farewells and he leaves his secure spot against the wall, thoughts running through his head that—for once—don’t revolve around his past life.

He boards the plane, deciding that there’s _nothing_ he likes about flying. The cabin is cramped and completely full. It’s six people in a row, but at least he’s between the window and her. He’s not sure what he would’ve done if he’d been sat next to a stranger.

She’s completely absorbed in her notebook, and when he glances over he notices that all the sketches are of him—the other versions of him. The version with the raven’s feather crown, the version with the wings, and the version he is now. In her sketches, and his mind, they’re all different people.

She’s oblivious to him staring at her, with her sketchbook in hand and headphones in ears he’d be surprised if he snap her out of her reverie at all. There were times when he’d catch her in total immersion, utterly impossible to drag away from the piece of art she’s working on. He usually doesn’t have a reason to drag her away, anyways, but he starts to get concerned when she doesn’t emerge from her studio for hours on end. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

She’s so distracting that he doesn’t know they’re in the air until his ears pop for the first time. His head swivels away from her and towards the window, where the world beneath them continually gets smaller.

The memories he has of wings come to the forefront, and the ache in his chest that misses them becomes stronger. One of the few things he knows enough of to miss, besides her, are his wings. He remembers what it’s like to fly, and he wishes he could do it again. He misses the wind in his face and the view of the city below him. He can’t remember the name of the city for the life of him, but just remembering it makes him happier.

The plane ride passes without excitement, and he manages to finish the book he’d been trying to read in the terminal. The ending is a little too tidy for his taste, but he didn’t write the book, so he takes it with a grain of salt and slides the book into the backpack at his feet. He’d, stupidly, left his memory notebook in the overhead carry-on, so he’s left with only one option.

When he looks over to her, she’s broken out the coloring pencils. They’re splayed out on the seat tray and rattle back and forth with the small turbulence. One of her headphones have fallen out, and her hair curtains her face, and consequently her sketchbook, from view. She’s breathtaking.

The plane lands five hours later and they get off, where he immediately he pulls out the notebook and scratches out a note about the city he remembers flying over. The scribblings are almost incoherent at this point, and the lines of the paper have been completely overlooked. The notebook is quickly filling up, and he knows that he’ll never share most of it, even with her. Some wounds, even in a different life, have yet to heal.

“Hotel or hospital?” He asks after she’s half-in a taxi, even with the small dripping of her feelings telling him the answer.

“Hospital.” The answer is definitive, as if the other option isn’t even one. It reminds him of a meeting in a place away from his city, where she had stood up and spoken so definitively that they had all followed her. The rest of that memory is a blur, besides the crown he remembers her wearing. All of his favorite memories are of her in a crown.

“I’ll take our bags to the hotel and meet you there, alright?”

No part of him wants to separate from her in any way, not when she’s so vulnerable. The fire he once saw in her has begun to smolder again, but he’s afraid. He’s terrified to let her out of his sight. He knows that he can’t lock her down and control her—he’s slowly starting to remember what that did to her the first time—and yet he wants to anyways.

But he can’t. She is stronger and brighter than he’ll ever be, and he can’t smother that light. He could never smother that light, the part of her that glows.

So instead, as she nods, he squeezes her hand once and gets in a different taxi from hers. He doesn’t tear his eyes away from the car she’s in until it’s far out of sight, and even after he keeps glancing forward as if it’ll suddenly appear in front of him.

He’s impatient the entire way to the hotel, and from there to the hospital. Every minute he spends away from her is another minute he can’t protect her, another minute she could be hurt or in danger. He knows that it’s unlikely, that the chances of her being in true danger are slim to none, but the paranoia makes him fidgety and snappy at the two taxi drivers he comes in contact with. He can’t even bring himself to truly feel bad.

When he gets to the hospital he can’t get out of the car fast enough. As he’d gotten closer the pieces of their bond had become more receptive, and the mixture of grief and anger he was feeling wasn’t at all reassuring. He needed to find her and comfort her, make sure she was okay. He knows that she doesn’t remember yet, and he’s willing to wait. He remembers waiting in their first life, and he knows that at the end of the day she’s worth it. They’re worth it. He’ll wait the entirety of this life if it means she’ll love him in the next.

The receptionist, whose succinct and quick, gives him the room number for Nesta Archeron and he’s on his way. He’s sure that he could’ve just followed the bond until he found her, but he’d rather not wander the halls like a ghost. He makes sure to knock twice before he enters the room, shoulders that had been tense for the past hour relaxing at the sight of her—unharmed and physically okay.

It’s more than he can say for her sister.

He doesn’t remember much about his interactions with Nesta—only that she was always angry, always behind walls and walls and walls. He’d never seen her with her guard down, never seen her as anything less than immaculate and perfectly put together.

But the breathing tube and the shades of blue and purple across her face make her nearly unrecognizable, if not for the fact that she sits next to her, clutching the hand of her eldest sister with a raging anger reflected in her eyes.

He recognizes the man on the other side of the bed as the one with the red stones.

He blinks twice, as if to clear his vision, but the man is still there afterwards. He connects the dots and realizes he must be the man who’d called her that morning—Cassian.

Putting a name to the face opens the floodgates he’s put on the constant trickle of memories rushing through him. The full stream is as awful as he remembers. It couldn’t have lasted longer than ten seconds, but when he opens his eyes again it’s to the two conscious people in the room staring at him. The look in her eyes is one he’s familiar with.

The look in Cassian’s eyes is the one that concerns him.

There’s a swirling mixture of grief and anger and the remnants of a still healing wound that he recognizes in himself—then there’s something else too.

He supposes it’s because of the something else that Cassian has him pinned against the wall in a few moments. The spiral he’s been slowly falling down turns into a gaping pit.

He’s not in a hospital room anymore. He’s on a battlefield and the smell of blood and sweat permeates his senses. Every part of him has shut down except for the part that knows how to fight, how to keep himself alive. He’s not quite controlling his limbs, they move in a way that tells him he’s done this many times before—that he’ll likely do this many times again. He’s lost his sword somehow and his magic has been completely depleted. His survival relies on his fists and training that’s been beaten into him atop a cold, icy mountain. If he hesitates for a single moment, he’ll die.

The parts of him that have been locked into a box _knows_ he’s in a hospital room, that Cassian is anything but a threat. It can hear the horrified sounds she’s making from the other side of the room and the commotion coming from the hallways. It knows that Cassian is wavering, not because he’s growing tired, but because he recognizes the look in his eyes and knows he’s far, far away from the hallway they’ve fought themselves into—because he gets the same look in his own eyes.

He doesn’t see the syringe that gets thrown to Cassian from the sidelines, the one filled with a clear liquid. He begins to falter, tries to summon the darkness that he knows will win him this fight but it doesn’t come and he’s left with his fatigued limbs and staggering motions. The fluid grace he’s always fought with begins to fall away and he knows this is the end. This is it.

When he blacks out, he doesn’t think it’s because of the syringe in his arm.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side Note: I took a very Oliver Queen-esque approach to this. Many Arrow (the other love of my life) fanfics don’t necessarily “play up” Oliver’s PTSD but examine it in a more clinical and realistic way than the show does. I did the same thing with Rhys. It’s canonical that Rhys has PTSD in the form of his nightmares. I think that without his daemati powers and with the limitations on the rest of his arsenal that he wouldn’t cope nearly as well during the daylight as he does in the books. He’ll be okay, don’t worry, but I felt like I needed to address this in story. As he’s recovering memories it’s as if he’s reliving them, and we all know that our favorite High Lord has seen a lot of shit. I wanted to fill in a plot hole and in general deepen Rhys’ character.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wakes up. She starts to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> This chapter is a little shorter, apologies, but last chapter was a little longer and I wanted to get this up before Ao3 maintenance tomorrow because it's at a very, very inconvenient for me. It's roughly edited aka looked over twice so if you find any typos feel free to (nicely) point them out.
> 
> The first half of this chapter is plot advancing, and then the second part is pure Feysand. Or, well, as much as I'll give you. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> \- Jade

_'Cause if one day you wake up and find that you're missing me_  
  
_And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth I could be_  
  
_Thinking maybe you'll come back here to the place that we'd meet_  
  
_And you'll see me waiting for you on the corner of the street_  
  
_So I'm not moving, I'm not moving_

-

Sleep drags from him.

It’s the first thing that’s different: that he _is_ sleeping, and that he’s not violently torn from it. There’s a certain amount of commotion that doesn’t line up with the apartment--the shuffling of feet in the hall and steady sound of someone breathing. Combined with the fact that he’s actually sleeping, the weight of a body pressed next to his, and the arm on his torso, he knows that something’s wrong.

His eyes snap open at that realization, meeting an unfamiliar white ceiling. A thousand thoughts run through him before he turns and finds that it’s _her_ curled up against him, sleeping. She keeps shuffling, that permanent set in her brow he noticed the first time he saw her more apparent than ever, but she’s sleeping, so he’s knows that they’re safe. She wouldn’t be asleep if they were in any kind of danger.

The constant stream of memories that washes through him has stopped for the first time since she saw him, and he takes the moment to bask in the quiet. There’s another, more recent memory battling for his attention but he ignores it, focusing on her. He tentatively reaches a hand across and pushes the strands of hair that have fallen out of her face. He’s too afraid to go any further, even if she’s already curled around him.

The door opens and he nearly forgets that, sliding out from under her and sitting up. He recognizes who walks in, and it makes his head throb once again. His short relief is taken away. The woman with the black hair waltzes in and seats herself in the chair next to his bed, unfazed by his reaction.

“It’s been a long time, High Lord.” The title strikes a chord in him, one that reverberates through his bones. He pays it no mind, not with the otherworldly way she speaks. Some part of his knows she’s not human.

“Who are you?” His eyes narrow and he resists the urge to pull the woman still sleeping next to him closer.

“The only person the spell didn’t work on.”

“What do you want?”

She sighs, and for the first time he truly notices the huge piece of jewelry around her neck. It reminds him of the ring around his. “To go home. Unfortunately, you’re the only person who can grant me that.”

None of her answers make any sense, and only succeed in confusing him more. “The Cauldron broke when I was released. You were all too drained to fix it. But you and your mate tried anyways, and you died in the attempt. Helion picked up the Book of Breathings and managed to cast a spell. We ended up here.” She gestures around her, than to the brunette at his side. “She was too overcome with grief to cast the spell herself. If she had, it wouldn’t have thrown us into another world.” There’s no malice in her tone, only a hint of annoyance.

“You need to get back to full power so we can all go home. That means remembering.” Her tone is condescending, and he nearly rises out of bed to defend himself. “You refused to remember, so you attacked your brother and I had to fake documentation for you. Do you know how difficult it is to fake an entire life overnight? You’re lucky I started right after you entered this plane.”

“What? I-”

“You need to remember, Rhysand.” She commands him, paying no mind to the questions he has. “Prythian is in shambles. Velaris’ wards have fallen. The spell has slowed the void, but it has swallowed half of the Summer Court in the time you’ve been gone.”

There’s a hurricane of memories he’s been standing in the eye of since he’s come back, desperately avoiding it all. Her words throw him into the winds.

A million different things, places, people flood him. He doesn’t know how long he suffers in its thrall. The memories are cold and dark and _broken_ , filling him with so much guilt and pain that it suffocates him.

But _she’s_ the light. He’d be more surprised if she wasn’t.

He remembers those blissful days spent in the cabin and all the time after they spent apart. He remembers the pain of knowing that she was hundreds of miles away.  He remembers nights at Rita’s with his family, laughing away the night. He remembers the safety of Velaris and that _every second_ of pain had been worth it if it meant preserving the one good thing he’d be remembered for.

When the barrage of memories ends and he opens his eyes again, it’s to Feyre leaning over him, softly murmuring his name.

“Feyre?” His voice is hoarse as he raises a hand, brushing the hair that’s fallen behind her ear and resting his palm against her cheek.

“Oh, thank goodness.” The relief in her eyes is almost enough to make him forget what Amren, who’s gone now, told him. He can see the questions in her eyes as he sits up, forcing her to lean back. When she moves to climb off of him, he softly sets his hands on her waist. The touch is featherlight, but the way her hands tentatively wrap around his neck gives him to the courage to continue.

“I need you to remember.” He asks-- _pleads_.

“What? I-I thought we were taking this slow.” She laughs nervously, sliding her hands to clutch his shoulders. “And-and you need to get checked out. You didn’t tell me how bad the memories were affecting you, but this strange wom--”

“Feyre, please.” It’s one of the few times he’s ever interrupted her. It leaves an ugly taste in his mouth, but he needs to. “I need you to remember.”

“Rhys, you just attacked someone you once considered a brother.” The utter heartbreak in her voice is enough to quiet him, if only for a moment. “I talked to him and he’s starting to remember too, but he had to give you a sedative and a lot of people are asking a lot of questions that I-I can’t answer.” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “I have a lot of questions that I can’t answer. All my memories are incomplete but they _feel_ important. Like there’s a reason within them that we’re here.”

She’s projecting her feelings across their rediscovered bond: the hesitance and pain that have come with most if not all of the moments she’s remembered. It sends a dagger through him.

He carefully presses his brow to hers, soothingly running his thumbs back and forth over her cheekbones as her eyes flutter shut. “I know a lot of them hurt, but there are just as many good ones; like Starfall.”

A breathtaking smile rules her face at his words. “We haven’t discussed Starfall since the first day.” It awes him how she doesn’t question how he knows her thoughts, how she gives him her blind trust. He’s hesitant to tell her, but what was once a small reminder is now an unbearable weight, a noose around his neck. He has to tell her.

“Do you remember the Weaver?”

“The time you sent me in or the time she ate that horrible priestess?” Her answer is immediate, though there’s a hint of confusion surrounding the former.

“The first one. Do you remember what I asked you to get?”

Her brow furrows, concentration etching into her features. “It was a test, but I don’t remember what I got.”  She shudders, wrapping her arms around herself in a comforting motion. “I do remember throwing up in the House afterwards.”

He reaches for the chain under his shirt, pulling it over his head and holding it towards her. “I asked you to get this ring.”

He’d remembered his first thought when he’d looked at the ring himself, the intricate gold and silver bands twining around the deep set blue jewel in the middle. It had always left him pining for something else, someone else. Eventually he had tucked it under his shirt and willfully forgotten about it. It had reminded him of another time that he didn’t remember. Until now.

Feyre gently plucks the ring out of his hand, leaving the chain hanging in the space between them. She gently runs her fingers across the vine-like band, as if it’s familiar but she doesn’t know why it is. She looks up at him, “What about it?”

He swallows, both gathering and smothering the words he wants to say. _We’re married. I love you. You were broken and it scared me. You told me once that you had wanted to die._

“It was yours.”

Shock flits across her face, followed by understanding. “Oh.”

He takes a moment to gather the words, tries to find a way to present them to a version of her that isn’t his, that doesn’t fully remember. “You don’t have to wear it, but it’s yours. I can’t keep it.”

She flips it over once, twice, before taking the chain in hand and slipping it over her neck. She carefully tucks it under the plain, paint-stained t shirt she’s wearing and pulls her hair out from under the chain.

He’s both infinitely glad and infinitely disappointed. She’s not-- _they’re_ not--quite there yet, but they’re on the way. The latter of his emotions turns into disappointment in himself. He should be glad that she accepted the ring at all. A week ago, she wouldn’t have.

The thought nearly breaks him in half, but sight of the chain around her neck, even tucked under her collar, reminds him of what he’s fighting for.

To return home and go back to where they really belong.

To restore peace and order and preserve what he had worked so hard to achieve.  

To find his brothers, his cousin, and his Second and go home.

But he knows that he’ll wait forever for Feyre to be ready to go home, to let go of the place she’s called home for almost three decades. Prythian be damned, until she’s willing to go he’ll wait.

He’ll always wait for her.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1) I apologize for the wait. School started on the 5th and since then I haven't really had time to write.  
> 2) This chapter is extremely short in comparison to the rest of them. I apologize if it's entirely unsatisfying. Next chapter, whenever I get around to writing it, will have some SERIOUS plot advancement.  
> 3) I promise that I have an actually explanation for why Feyre hasn't remembered yet other than plot development. Whether you'll accept the explanation is a whooooole different subject, however.  
> 4) Please enjoy!!! Comments fuel me to write and you can always hit me up on Tumblr @feyreofthewildfire. Come scream to me abou Tower of Dawn because OMFG it was amazing. Not gonna say anything here because spoilers.  
> \- Jade

_Maybe I’m the one who makes everything so complicated_

_Maybe I’m the one who can’t decide what she wants_

_Maybe I’m the one who makes things a little bit frustrating_

~~_Maybe you should be the one who gives up on me_ ~~

_Maybe you will be the one who loves me for me_

-

She’s ashamed of herself.

The new weight threatens to snap her neck like it had already been once. It doesn’t feel right around her neck, not truly, but it feels right in her possession. Her resurfacing memories push and pull at her worse than they ever have. She had tried taking off the ring once, but it had only left the space between her breasts feeling bare. 

It’s almost impossible not to notice the way his eyes always gravitate to the bits of chain that show through the collar of her shirt and strands of her hair. The need to both run as far as she can and pull him impossibly close becomes harder to ignore everyday. He’s infinitely patient and understanding, always touching her in some way. It’s the man she remembers falling in love with.

Well,  _ mostly _ remembers falling in love with. 

It frustrates her endlessly that he’s retrieved all his memories and she’s stuck with half of them. They’re incomplete and hazy around the edges, none of them making perfect sense. Her mind is a half complete puzzle with the missing pieces barely out of reach. 

She’s sitting beside Nesta once again, clutching one of her hands in her own as he stands outside speaking to Cassian. She’s already heard the life story once, about  _ why _ he’d pinned him against the wall that one day. It had been so similar to the one she was slowly piecing together from his past self—they were all so similar. Cassian was cocky, Mor was bright, Nesta was stone, Elain was lovely, and  _ he  _ was… everything. 

The only person who had truly changed seemed to be her.

She’d spent her nights lying in bed with him as he spun tales of their true lives, of the defiance and bravery she once bestowed, of the amount of pure power she’s once held in paint-flecked hands. She had been regal and a force of nature, one to be both feared and admired. She had torn down entire armies and created the illusion of an entire one with a simple wave of her hand. She had created wolves of water and drowned enemies on dry land. She had swayed four of the most powerful men in the world to her cause. 

Now she was a struggling art student who taught wine and canvases on the weekends and occasionally volunteered with foster kids.

It seemed there were similarities—enough for him to look at her the same way she fuzzily remembers, with a reverence and love she can’t bear. She can no longer look him in the eye, similar to when they’d first met. His affection from before had become ten-fold—-she wasn’t sure how she handled it in her other life, the blind trust he always placed in her. It was as suffocating as it was liberating.

She’s jolted out of her own thoughts as the door opens behind her, turning her head to see the two men walk in, joking and laughing like they’ve known each other for all of time. She supposes that they’ve known each other long enough to be considered all of time, if her scattered memories serve her right. At least a few centuries they had been friends before the spell had torn them apart. 

_ Wings in little ribbons as a hand with a red stone on the back reaches out towards the form lying in the spilled water. _

She jumps out of her seat, the plastic chair toppling over from the sudden movement. Instantly, he’s upon her, hesitantly reaching out a hand to her face, only to instead place it on her shoulder. “What did you see?”

She nods her head towards Cassian. “Him.”

Cassian’s brows furrow as he crosses his arms, adjusting his stance in such a  _ male _ way it makes her want to sigh. “What exactly? I don’t even remember everything.”

She makes a few useless hand gestures as she tries to recollect it. Her eyes fall on the notebook lying on the bedside table and she snatches it up, pulling the pencil out of the spiral spine and opening to a random page. She scribbles out a description as she speaks, “Uh, it was like a big ballroom almost. You had those red stones—”

“Siphons,” the two of them interrupt in perfect unison. She does sigh this time. 

“You had those Siphons on the back of your hand. I couldn’t tell if they were your wings specifically, but they were torn into absolute shreds. You were reaching out towards a form lying in a puddle of water.”

Cassian raises a hand to his jaw as his focus fades away, doing what she can only assume to be connecting that memory with some of the others he has. 

Her eyes flick over the man standing directly in front of her just in time to see him shudder and close his eyes, a look of grief flitting over his face for only a moment. She opens her mouth to ask, only to spiral down.

_ Pain. Pain and screaming and screaming and screaming as a sinister man points a finger at her and agony tears through her chest and left arm. He’s on the ground opposite her, roaring what might have been her name or sheer torment as her body contorts on the ground, her chest ripping in half as she dies and dies and dies and dies and dies and dies and dies.  _

_ Then the earth tears and half and she falls into the endless pit. _

_ Falling. Falling. Falling. _

She resurfaces and finds herself lying on the ground, forehead clammy and eyes wild as she attempts to recalibrate, attempts to recenter herself in reality, in the hospital room where her sister lies unconscious and he’s in front of her, holding her face in his hands with a stern gentleness she recognizes. He’s repeating a single word, but her vision is so shaky and her breathing so heavy that she can’t tell what it is. 

She snaps her neck to side and rips her jaw out of his cradling hands, turning her entire body as she dry heaves onto the cold linoleum floor. He soothingly rubs circles between her shoulders, patiently waiting for her to pull herself out of the trench of the memory. 

When she turns back over and opens her eyes, the sight before her is just out of reach. It’s familiar, she  _ knows _ it is, but she doesn’t remember from where. His face is drawn and there are blue lights behind him, winking to life on their own accord. His wings are tucked in and hair disheveled as the word he’s repeating sets in.

“Breathe.”

She does. The blue lights, the wings, everything fades back into the hospital room save for his face. 

“Good. Again.”  
  
A shuddering, violent breath goes through her. 

“Again.”

She ignores him, reaching up and wrapping her arms around him. “It hurt so much,” her voice is hoarse, hands clammy.

He doesn’t respond, instead choosing to gently pull her into a sitting position and lay a kiss in her hair. His hand runs up and down her back as he curls himself around her. 

A blanket of stars wrap around them and she nearly relaxes. The darkness caresses her and soothes the reopened wound that had been a near invisible scar before. 

The gates between them have been blown wide open. She’s splintered into pieces again. He’s patiently picked them back up again. She knows he’ll carry them until she’s ready to take them back herself. She knows that he will bear her weight for her without even a request. She knows that she shouldn’t let him—shouldn’t take advantage of that part of him that gives and gives and gives without asking for a single thing back.

Perhaps she had been strong enough once.

But as she falls apart in his arms once again, she knows she isn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: a new pov and a few more characters


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three sisters & three brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!!
> 
> Firstly, this chapter was an absolute blur to write. It's just over 2400 words, all of which I wrote in roughly 36 hours. If the grammar is awful, I apologize right now. If anyone wants to beta read for me, hit me up on Tumblr! I'm also writing another, original thing and could use a critique partner. 
> 
> (Basically I'm looking for friends)
> 
> It's been really fun exploring these different characters outside of the point of view of Feyre and Rhys. They're reverted back to either who they were at the beginning or just different versions of themselves, and weaving these new and old qualities into something believable has been interesting. 
> 
> I'm so excited for the next chapter
> 
> Enjoy!!
> 
> \- Jade

_I've broken free from those memories_

_I've let it go, I've let it go_

_And two goodbyes_

_Led to this new life_

_Don't let me go, don't let me go_

 

* * *

 

When Nesta wakes up, it’s with a violent gasp and wide eyes.

Every part of her aches, though not in the way she remembers it. Her muscles ache from lack of use, not pain.

She can still feel every step of the marble stairs as she fell, her bones breaking into fragments and her blood vessels bursting open to color her skin purple. She can still hear Cassian’s bellowing her name as she does.

Cassian.

She turns her head and he’s sitting next to her bed, sleeping in such a way that she _knows_ will hurt when he wakes up. She gently shakes his shoulder with a slow hand. He instantly wakes and jumps out of his seat, fists already curling in preparation of a fight.

She rolls her eyes, “Sit down. I woke you up.” The words don’t have the same bite they always do.

She’s come to expect the same response from him whenever she wakes him up and even when she doesn’t. That’s not what concerns her.

The dark smudges under his eyes are worse, and the forever haunted shadows have crept up further on him. Even after the first time he’d found the bruises from her vile husband, he had still looked the same. Even after she’d been unable to get out of bed, he had still looked the same. She’d needed him, whether she had wanted to admit it or not, and he had been unwaveringly there beside her.

There’s no way the darkness she’d banished before has reappeared in concern for her. It’s something else. It has to be.

Perhaps it’s the visions they’ve been having since they met. They had begun to become harrowing right before her fall, and even before then his own night terrors from his time in the Air Force had kept them both awake at night.

He blinks, “You’re awake.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Her sarcasm lashes off her tongue, though not as harshly as she’d like. Some of her walls have fallen, too shattered to raise once again.

She supposes that she owes it to him anyways. Tomas would have let her bleed out at the bottom of the stairs. Cassian must’ve been the one to take her to the hospital.

Her next wall cracks a little bit with that realization. He cares, even when she has nothing to give and he has so much to take. She can’t have him, she reminds herself. He deserves better. He _needs_ better. She can’t give him what he needs.

He chooses that moment to sit himself on the edge of the bed and tightly lace his hand through hers. The action feels oddly domestic, and Nesta finds comfort in that. He’s not in a mood for jokes, it seems. All the notions from before fall away as he starts to talk.

“He pushed you down the stairs.” The words are quiet—horrified. He raises their hands to press his lips against the back of hers, shutting his eyes for a moment. “I could hear your bones cracking. When you finally stopped falling, you looked… dead.” He shudders violently, grip tightening in hers. “I thought you were dead.”

She softens ever-so-slightly for this man—this man who had chosen to care for her when she’d done nothing but lash out at him and push him away. “It’ll take more than that to kill me.” The words are still hard and defiant.

“No, Nes—it won’t.” He retorts, the strain in his voice worsening. “You are a… an inferno, but you’re also fragile.” Her eyes narrow at his words, grip on his hand slackening. He groans and shakes his head, looking away from her. “That’s not what I meant. Tomas has an ungodly cache of resources and now that you’ve survived this he’s going to attack you with the entirety of that cache.”

She scoffs, “Let him.” The confidence she feigns is the near flawless in contrast to the parasite of fear in her. Her world has flipped but Cassian is still the same. He is her only constant now. She has to remind herself that he _cares_ , that he will not use and abuse her. He will not lure her in with a pretty smile before ripping out her throat when she gets close.

When the worry in his eyes doesn’t lesson, she sighs and scoots herself away from him. She pats the newly vacated space with her hand. “Lie down, you overprotective brute.”

A sparkle pushes away the worry, if only for a moment. “You’re usually more demanding than that, sweetheart.” Even as he says this he lies down without any true resistance, tucking his arm under the pillow and facing her, leaving his opposite hand in hers.

She breezes over the snark, “What happened?”

His face falls and those shadows creep in a little closer. She detaches her hand from his and brushes the pieces of hair that have fallen out of his hair tie as his eyes flutter shut. She doesn’t _want_ to be protective, she doesn’t _want_ to care so much, but she does. She does. She pulls her hand back as he leans into it and drops it in the space between them.

“The dreams,” he answers, though stops there. He reaches his hand across and throws it over her waist, gently tugging her to him. She wraps her arm over his torso and tentatively places her hand between his shoulder blades. There’s no point in resisting, not when her skin sings with the contact.

“What about them?” She prods, tilting her head up as he tilts his down.

“They’re real now.”

It’s a challenge to keep her face neutral and uncaring, even with the practice she’s had. There had always been something awfully visceral about them, and the actions of her dream self had begun to translate into her waking hours, but she had never believed in any sort of that magic or supernatural bullshit. Nesta had always liked tangible things—things that she _knew_ were real without a doubt. Putting hope into anything that wasn’t concrete had only led to anger and disappointment.

Well, except Cassian. But she was bracing herself for this to crash and burn too.

“What do you mean they’re real.”

His grip on her tightens. “Rhys—my foster brother—isn’t dead after all. But he’s not Rhys. He’s a different Rhys. He looks like him but he doesn’t have any of the memories.”

Her next exhale shakes the slightest bit at that statement. She knows what his brother’s death had done to him. She knows that utter heartbreak that had encapsulated him when Rhiannon had been forced to close down Illyria two years later. She knows what he had done to himself when he had failed to reopen it.

His heart is a newly healed scar—one that she had soothed—now ripped wide open again.

She doesn’t say anything, only runs her hand soothingly over his back and pulls him closer. Words don’t mean anything. All she can do is offer herself.

 

* * *

 

Elain can barely breathe.

Everything has gone wrong. _Everything_.

The first flight had been cancelled and the second one had been delayed. Some man, who was way too old to be traveling, had elected to have a stroke and they’d been forced to land overnight.

Now she’s sitting on the plane again, and her sisters are still hours away. Her leg bounces with impatience and not even the bad, cheesy romance novel she’s been trying to read can capture her attention. She fidgets with the ring she still wears on her left hand, mind running a mile a minute with countless scenarios of what could have possibly gone wrong since Feyre’s last call.

A scarred hand stops the motions of hers, “Hey.”

Her eyes flick up to Az, who sits between herself and the isle. She sighs and laces her fingers through his. He grounds her with one, gentle word and a reassuring gesture. It’s a friendship she wouldn’t trade for the world. After Graysen, he had been the friend she needed.

“I’m sorry,” she instantly apologizes. “I’m just so nervous. Anything could go wrong while we’re up here. What if Nesta gets worse? What if she dies?” She knows that she’s working herself into a panic, that it’s more than likely that her older sister is okay but the probability doesn’t stop her from worrying.

“She’s going to be okay,” He placates. “If half the stories you’ve told me are true, she’ll make it through whatever’s happened.”

Elain supposes that he’s right. Nesta is angry and intense and she knows it only could’ve gotten worse with the influence of Tomas hanging over her. She hasn’t seen her sister in over three years, and she had been something begrudgingly close to happy.  She’d moved across the country with her fiance only to find nothing but a facade taken off.

The calls had stopped after eight months. It’d been radio silence since, only the occasional check coming through instead. Elain would’ve given up every single one, no matter how vital they’d been, to hear her sister’s voice again.

She focuses her attention on the hand in hers, tracing the ridges and divots in the skin that she’d done only a few times before. She’d never had the courage to ask how he’d gotten them, to cross the line from amicable friendship to something much more meaningful.

Though she supposed she had already crossed the line when she’d hysterically asked if he’d come with her, across the country for an indefinite amount of time. His answer had been an immediate _Of course_ in that quiet way of his that knows that too many words will break her. He’d helped her collect herself and did everything for her, caring for her when all she cared about was Nesta. He’s essentially become her caretaker.

She’s not sure what she’s ever done to earn such loyalty from him.

Her heart has become a shriveled piece of betrayal and disappointment, filled in with shame and sadness. It’s been so long since she’s seen Graysen, but she also knows that she doesn’t deserve to see him. She’d broken one of the few rules he had set and instead of nodding her head and walking away like she should have, she’d snipped at him.

That had been the end of that.

Within the week she’d been packed up and kicked out. She’d found a listing for a temporary roommate in Azriel and had moved in, slowly adjusting and attempting to call her younger sister. She’d completely lost contact with Feyre during the transition period, and hadn’t been able to get back in touch at all.

That was, of course, until Feyre had called her in the middle of night in a frenzy. She’d calmed her down and promised to send a few checks until Feyre had settled herself. Her plans to move out into her own apartment had gone out the window with the promise, but she had found that she hadn’t minded. Not truly, at least.

Obviously, the Archeron Sisters had _impeccable_ taste in men. It was the only thing in common she had with her two vastly different sisters—her two sisters who were near antagonistic to each other. There was a small sense of disgruntled loyalty that undercut the biting insults they would throw back and forth, but she knows it only stems from their promise to their mother.

Elain takes a deep breath and continues to trace Az’s scars, still with little bits of dirt wedged between her nail and finger.

She blinks and he’s handing her a short sword, no longer than her forearm. Blue stones are set in gauntlets on the back of his hand as silence rings around them.

 _It will serve you well_.

As soon as it starts, it ends.

She looks over and finds him staring at her with a quiet thoughtfulness, a contemplation that she’s become familiar with. They’ve only known each other for a matter of months, and yet there’s something comforting about his presence that never fails to calm her.

Maybe it has to do with the visions. Maybe it doesn’t.

She’s too afraid to ask if he gets them too in fear of sounding crazy. She’s not sure if he’ll call her so or believe her, and she finds that the uncertainty is better than the betrayal if he does find her so. She’s rather omit a truth than run the risk of losing him.

He’s become infallibly important to her in only a matter of months.

It’s a terrible realization.

Elain finds that he’s still staring at her, with the patient look on his face that only causes her heart to drop of her stomach. When she shakes her head, he simply nods once and turns away and back to his phone, where she knows he’s messaging Rhiannon.

She almost wishes he had asked her anyways.

 

* * *

 

He’s recounting stories once again.

She’s not sure anymore if it’s for her or himself, if it’s to help her remember or to help him convince himself that it’s still her. Maybe it’s both.

It feels like she doesn’t know anything at all.

The memories had calmed long ago and now they sit in their hotel room, visiting hours long over. She’s perched in his lap on the bed, her head tucked into the space between his collarbone and neck. If she focuses hard enough, she can hear his heartbeat. It’s steady and soothing, a gentle pulse that reminds her of home—wherever that is.

“Rhys?” She asks quietly after he finishes speaking.

“Yes, darling?” The pet name feels natural, as if calling her by any other name would be wrong. It’s such a strange feeling, finding home in things not recognized.

“Do you miss the flying?”

She feels his breathing hitch, his grip loosen for only a moment, but the answer he gives is true. His answers are always true, “Yes.”

Her eyes flutter shut as she finds herself growing sleepy, “What do you miss?”

His grip, in contrast to before, tightens around her waist, “The wind. The feeling of a free fall. Seeing everything so far away.”

He continues to speak, to spin a tale of flying and how she had once been able to do it herself. He continues to place her on a pedestal that she can’t climb up and she finds that she doesn’t mind. As long as he stays, as long as she has him, everything will be ok.

Everything has to be okay.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> six pieces, six adventures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> This chapter was written very quickly under a high burst of inspiration. Next chapter is 2/3 done as well, so I thought it'd be safe to post this one while I finish up the next one and tweak it. 
> 
> This chapter is very, very important! It makes me really happy to finally reveal a lot of this and mark an ending point to a section of the story.
> 
> Also, side note: I'm debating on whether I want to write a Nessian prequel, because their backstory is the absolute perfect bodyguard trope and I just need some good, old-fashioned trope-y goodness in my life. If I write that, it likely wouldn't be released until this one is done or at least near done. I'd love your thoughts on this.
> 
> Enjoy!!
> 
> \- Jade

_Can you save me now?_

_When the ground drops out_

_I get lost in the clouds_

_Save me now_

_You were my gravity_

 

 

* * *

Rhys knows something is different the moment they enter the hospital room.

Well, mostly because it’s to Nesta and Cassian aggressively making out.

His mate immediately squeaks and turns into him, covering her eyes. It’s adorable, incredibly different from what she’d usually do. It feels strange making a quip without her.

“Good to see you awake, Nesta.” He drawls, flicking up an eyebrow.

She leans back, though stays in her spot draped over Cassian’s legs. “So you’re Rhysand.” The words are bored, monotone, and yet still manage to be condescending. They hold none of the resentful respect she once had for him.

Not for the first time he wishes he had his daemati powers back.

Cassian wisely chooses to keep his mouth shut, though by the tightening of his mouth Rhys can tell that he wants to speak up. But he knows better; he’s ready to let Hurricane Nesta run its course.

“I am,” He responds simply.

This is a different Nesta, he has to remind himself. All of them are different, reverted back to who they were before the war. Nesta hasn’t changed yet. She is still bitter and cruel to anyone who she doesn’t care for, still scorned by whatever crucible she’s faced in this life. The only difference in this life is that she cares about Cassian.

It’s strange, to see that fire they’ve both tried to smother burning so brightly.

She opens her mouth to speak what he knows will be a biting insult only for the door to burst open, interrupting her.

It’s Elain.

And Azriel.

He blinks twice, wondering if he’s hallucinating that they’ve arrived— _together_.

Immediately his mind jumps forward to his cousin, and what could have possibly been destined to happen to that five century old fiasco. Almost as quickly he reels back, contemplating that the two of them have become friends.

It’s a very real possibility, given the fact that the two had quickly developed a quiet, steady friendship based in some sameness that they’d found in one another.

Then he spots the ring on her finger, and decidedly gives up.

The middle sister starts to run towards her sister, only to stop as she realizes that Nesta is draped over someone’s lap. Rhys almost laughs at the shocked expression on Elain’s face, if not for the sharp jab in the side from his mate. It’s something he would’ve never expected from the changed Feyre, and he finds himself distracted, staring at her with a delighted expression.

The disapproving look she gives leaves him breathless. His grin only widens when she shakes her head and turns her attention back to the scene before them, a flush to her cheeks that most definitely had not been there before.

His mate is absolutely _precious_.

He’s pulled from his thoughts as Az calls his name, though it’s laced with utter confusion and disbelief. Rhys knows what’s about to happen. Cass had given him the same look the first time they’d met.

At least he hadn’t been pinned against a wall this time.

He tenses at the sound of approaching heels, the door opening soon after.

It seemed that Nesta’s hospital room had become the new conference room, based on the sheer number of people they’d packed into it. The eldest Archeron only looks annoyed, having finally climbed off Cassian’s lap—though whether the annoyance was at the sudden increase of population or that her time with his brother has been interrupted, Rhys doesn’t know. Both seem equally plausible.

The thought process is quickly swept away when Amren strolls into the room, silver eyes boredly and yet scrutinizingly roaming over all six of them in the room.  Once upon a time he would’ve been apprehensive, but now he knows that it’s just Amren. She wouldn’t bite. She even liked _Nesta_ , for Mother’s sake.

They all seem to pass her test when her gaze becomes intense, focused rather than splicing. It seems she already has everyone figured out, and for that he’s glad.

In Prythian he might’ve been the most powerful male in existence. Here, he’s powerless—at least in all the ways that truly count. Here, he has no foothold, no basis in how the world works. He’s seen glimpses from the short time he’s spent there, but not enough.

Amren has been waiting for twenty years. Preparing and planning.

She nods at him and gestures towards the door. The backs of his fingers skim across Feyre’s as he leaves the room, temporarily filling the ache inside his heart.

A conversation starts up when he shuts the door behind him. He follows Amren into an empty room across the hall where—for the first time—there are no staff in the hall. He’d be more surprised if Amren _hadn’t_ been the cause of that “coincidence.”

He shuts the door behind her at yet another motion as a map he doesn’t recognize rolls out on the empty linoleum tiles, old and heavily marked. There are countless silvery marks and smears of pen ink littered across it. Six marks stand out in bright red, littered across the the separate continents. The handwriting varies from small and neat to large and messy; from legible to not. It’s an utter mess, and the opposite of what he’s learned to expect from his Second.

It’s only proof of the direness of their situation.

She circles the map once before speaking, “These are the approximate locations of the six pieces of the Cauldron—the feet and the remnants of the base.” She places the red heeled toe of her black pumps on a different mark as she lists off locations he doesn’t recognize. “New York City, the Brazilian rainforest, London, Moscow, rural Thailand, and southern Egypt.”

The fact that the pieces are _in_ this world is news to him, but he simply files the information away for later digestion. He’s sure there’s some sort of magic that’s brought the pieces here, and he’s sure that same magic brought them there as well. It’s easy to chalk up all of the weird coincidences to magic, _too_ easy in fact. Amren had said that Helion had casted a spell—they needed to figure out which one it was and what it had done.

“I’ve been corresponding with Varian throughout the years. It’s possible to send a message through the rip we tore when we came through, though spotty and unreliant. I haven’t been able to get one through since you entered this plane.”

He crosses his arms and takes two steps closer to the map, “I’m not familiar with… this.” He’s ashamed to admit it, that most of the knowledge he possesses has become useless in this new world. He knows that his friends, his _family_ , will help him, but the feeling of uselessness will follow him from here back into Prythian.

“This the world we’re in now. We’re currently here—” She places her foot on an unmarked spot northwest of New York City, “—in the rich sector of the Twin Cities. New York is roughly a four hour flight by plane. Things go well, this’ll take no more than a month in all.”

“Things never go well.” He adds, tone neutral and unbiased.

“‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,’” She agrees. “It’s an epigram from this world. I find it awfully accurate.”

He simply turns his attention back to the map. “Explain these places to me.”

This time she points rather than steps, “New York is considered one of the most influential cities in the world. It’s entirely too busy and rich. The Brazilian rainforest is hot and muggy and wet. London is small, but not too receptive to foreigners. Moscow won’t like you nor the other bats very much. Rural Thailand is full of fields and people who also don’t like foreigners. Southern Egypt is all sand and wind and heat.”

He sighs, “So they’re all in the worst possible spots.”

“Could be worse,” She dismisses him, “could be in North Korea or China. Or Australia,” The silver-eyed woman makes a face. “I’m not a fan.”

He takes her opinion in stride and crosses his arms, “What’s the plan?”

“Before any of us can do anything, your precious mate and her sisters have to retrieve their powers, or at least their memories. I can’t pinpoint the pieces on my own, and they’re useless without the Book.”

He tenses, thinking about the nightmares Feyre has been having as a cause of her recollection. “Will tracking the book be the same here?” He inquired, knowing that the answer would likely be a flat _no_.

“Unlikely. I doubt there’s any imprint of Tarquin left on it thanks to the fact that the wards had been placed over twenty years ago. He’d have to be the one to track it.”

“Then how do we get the book?”

“When your mate attempted to use it in Hybern, she left her own imprint. She has to track down herself.”

“And after that?”

“We split up and track the pieces down,” She states simply. “First, we need to get your cousin down here. Steal your girlfriend’s phone and call her if you must.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Girlfriend?”

“You’re so culturally ignorant,” She mumbles in annoyance, though he knows it’s feigned based on the small, amused quirk of her mouth. “Be careful what you say around the humans. Getting locked in an insane asylum would be disadvantageous.”

He dutifully nods, skipping over the reference. He can use context clues—he’s sure that an insane asylum is not somewhere he wants to find himself wound up in, whatever it is.

“How does magic work here?” He asks, both needing and dreading the answer.

“Not well. Whatever enables it in Prythian is not apparent here. Only what leaks through the rip, which is limited, permits it. The longer we stay here, the more likely the humans will discover it as well. They’re surprisingly competent. I give it six months before they notice something is different.”

He sighs, shoulders tensing. “Essentially, we’re on a clock with minimal progress.”

She nods, “Essentially.”

He waves his hand and the map rolls itself into an imperfect, crooked cylinder. His control is still shaky when it comes to anything besides night. He doesn’t trust himself to send it away to the hotel room—not when it’s so essential to what they’re doing. He’s thankful when Amren sends it away without being asked, saving him the embarrassment.

His first task was reacquainting himself with his powers at their diluted level. It seemed that included the complete absence of his daemati set, though the full might of his night manipulation. He’d work around it. He’d have to.

Amren leaves the empty room and he quickly follows, walking straight across the hall to Nesta’s room. He opens the door and walks in, noting the newly darkened expression on Az’s face and the relieved one on Elain’s.

His mate beckons him over and tugs him down to speak in his ear, so strange compared to the silent bond they’d always used. “They all know. They’ve been having dreams and visions too.”

The information is new but unsurprising. “Call Mor later and have her fly out.” Feyre simply nods and turns back to the conversation, effortlessly jumping back in.

They’re talking about the experiences of their remixed lives, a discussion he can’t join. Cass has served in the Air Force and Az has become a private investigator, both of which make him want to laugh. He doesn’t need to know the specifics of the jobs to know that they fit his brothers perfectly. Their lives had somehow been impeccably translated into this new one, which makes him both glad and grateful.

Even then, he doesn’t miss the looks of grief from both of them whenever they glance his way. They’ve already learned that of his Inner Circle all of them have known some other version of him, entirely the same and yet not similar at all.

A phone buzzes and Az pulls one out of his back pocket, scrolling upward once. He speaks without looking up, though it’s obviously directed at Elain, “I have to call Rhiannon.”

The name resonates through Rhys and he stops cold. A cacophony of memories he’d long buried assault him, leaving that gaping pit of failure more present than ever. He hasn’t heard her name in centuries. The three syllables ring through his ears and bones and reverb through his blood.

He blinks and their heads are in boxes, sent down the river for him to find. He blinks and their wings are hanging in the study, the veins once orange and red now void of color. He blinks and he’s standing in a hall, staring Tamlin in the face as the power transfers to them. He blinks and Feyre’s standing in front of him, close enough he can count her freckles.

There’s thirty-seven of them. He’s already done it before.

He can hear the faint sounds of Nesta and Elain catching up to their side, but he’s too busy staring at her doe eyes and look of concern, cataloguing the softness that doesn’t often appear. She’s not yet hardened by the circumstances she’d been suffocated under in Prythian, but she’s not quite carefree either. She’s so much lighter in this world, but not to the point where she blinds him.

Or maybe he’s just thinking up silly metaphors to compensate for the fact that this isn’t _his_ Feyre.

“Where’d you go?” She asks him quietly, having turned him away from where Cassian is reintroducing himself to Elain.

The words are almost ashamed. “I didn’t realize Rhiannon was alive here.”

He’s not sure she remembers until the recognition and pain flashes across her face. She hesitantly reaches up and places her hands on his forearms with the lightest touch, his own staying where they are, loosely hanging at his side.

He’s as surprised as he is not by the realization that skips along her features. “Rhys, your sister is _alive_ in some capacity here.” She emphasizes the word, “You could see her again.”

He shakes his head, “It would only make it worse. After all these years I’ve come to terms with it. Seeing her again isn’t worth it unless it’s permanent.”

She simply nods in concession, understanding radiating through the small fragments left of their bond. He clings onto those pieces, the only part of them that’s transferred through to this new world besides his mother’s ring, which still sits on the chain circling her neck.

He almost wishes that he hadn’t been reequipped with his memories, with the empty feeling that comes with his brothers not knowing him. He’d almost rather be forced to relearn everything than deal with the festering, parasitic feelings that curl in his gut.

Instead, he buries them away and stares at his—but not _his —_mate, knowing that as long as he has her, it’ll be okay.

Everything has to be okay.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone's a little broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> 1) Yes, I like to use the nightmare trope. I apologize now. I will attempt to limit my use of it from now on.
> 
> 2) Life just suddenly got really busy?? Actually finished this chapter about five minutes ago. I started it last Tuesday. Updates are probably going to slow down A LOT, and for that I apologize. I’m taking all advanced classes in school and the workload is substantial. I should actually be studying for a test that I have in APHG tomorrow. Oops.
> 
> 3) Please enjoy!!!
> 
> \- Jade

_I imagine the tears in your eyes_

_The very first night I sleep without you_

_When it happens I'll be miles away_

_And a few months late_

_Didn't know where I was running to_

_But I won't look back_

* * *

 

Azriel wants to rip his hair out.

“Rhi, you can’t fly out.” He commands, refusing the urge to pace back and forth in the hospital corridor.

“ _ Why not? If you can spontaneously decide to head across the country with the roommate you’ve had for four months to see her sister, then I can come out to see the brother I’ve known for nearly fifteen years.” _

“She has a name.” 

“ _ I’m still convinced that you two are sleeping together.” _

“We’re not.” For the first time his voices raises, even if it’s barely noticeable. Elain is still healing from the gaping wound her fiance had slashed into her. He’s trying to help, he is, but there’s so little he can do. 

“ _ Do you see the way she looks at you? It’s like you hung the goddamn moon in the sky.” _

“You can’t fly out.” He reverts the subject back to what it was supposed to be.

“ _ Alright. Just… be careful. I don’t know anyone in St. Paul that can help you if you get yourself into a pickle with your girlfriend’s family _ .”

He slides over the girlfriend jab, knowing better than the hark on it. “I’ll be fine. Goodbye, love you.”

“ _ Don’t die _ .”

The end tone sounds and he pulls the phone away from his ear, turning to find Elain standing awkwardly outside of Nesta’s room. Rhysand-not-Rhys had left with Feyre a few minutes before, and he knows that he wouldn’t want to be the third wheel in a room with Nesta and Cassian, given the situation they’d walked into earlier. 

“Your sister wants to fly out?” She asks, though unmoving from her spot as she wraps her arms around herself in a self-comforting way.

He nods, sliding the device into his front pocket. “I’m worried what’ll happen if she sees Rhysand.”

Her mouth forms into a small “o” as realization dawns on her. “I doubt that would go well.”

“It wouldn’t.” He simply says, before taking a hesitant half-step towards her. “You alright?” 

She shrugs, pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear, “I suppose. It’s just so strange seeing her after all this time, especially so… happy. Content.”

He stays silent, waiting for her to continue, to get out whatever she needs to say.

“She doesn’t need me anymore, and I don’t need her either.” She fumbles over her next words. “I mean, not in the way that we used to need each other. During the bad years I think I gave her some sort of… purpose, but now she has another one. I-I don’t have to rely on her now, either.” The words are stuttered and confused, as if in finally voicing her thoughts she’s realizing what they are. 

“Not needing her isn’t a bad thing, Elain.” He says softly, leaning his shoulder against the wall. “It’s not necessarily a good thing either. We all change and grow based on the people we surround ourselves with. It’s just human nature.”

He doesn’t move as she takes the two steps forward that were previously separating them and lays a hand on his bicep, giving it a gentle, singular squeeze.

“Thank you, Az.”

“Anything for you.”

 

* * *

 

Cassian can’t fathom how the  _ hell _ he’s ended up in this fiasco. 

Well, maybe he can. He’s too tired to connect the dots.

It turns out the that the dreams of flying he had as a child that’d led him to join the Air Force had in fact not been dreams, but memories connected to the nightmares he’s been having since meeting Nesta.

Nesta.

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed tracing meaningless designs on her calf as she scrolls through her phone lying down, undoubtedly catching up on whatever’s she’s missed and texting Feyre, who had left with the not-real-but-actually-real Rhys a while ago. 

That last thought alone gives him a headache.

A long suffering, annoyed sigh escapes her lips and draws his attention back to her, rolling onto her back. The ice in her eyes becomes a little warmer when she looks at him, “I need to get out of here.”

He chuckles, “That’s why they’re gathering the paperwork, sweetheart.”

She doesn’t protest as he moves so that he’s lying atop her, head rested on her stomach. He almost purrs when she starts to gently comb her fingers through the knot that is his long hair. “I’ve been here for a week. I’m almost fully healed, and I have Tomas’ ass to drag to court.” He nearly shudders at that abominations name, arms tightening around her. 

“There’s no rush. We have a lot of time.” He counters, “The injuries you had when I brought you in were obvious and catalogued as domestic abuse. Doesn’t matter when, as soon as you take him to court he’ll go away for a long while.”

In actuality, he wants to head back to that prison of a mansion and kill the bastard for what he’d done to Nesta. He wants Tomas to feel every bit of pain she had when he’d pushed her down the marble stairs, and add a bit more for good measure. His blood sings with the idea, fingers flexing as if in preparation.

But he knows better. He knows that actions have consequences, that murdering one of the richest men in the Midwest will land him in deep shit.  He also knows that it’s Nesta’s fight, it’s Nesta’s  _ right _ to strip that bastard of all he’s worth and send him away.

He knows death would be too merciful.

“I know what you’re thinking,” She chastises, “killing him would be more trouble then it’s worth. Stripping him of all his money, however, will be fun.” 

Cassian looks up and there’s a small, miniscule glint of mischievousness in her blue eyes. A sharp bark of laughter escapes him as he shakes his head at the deviousness of his…

His what?

They no longer have to hide behind closed doors and away from prying eyes. They’re no longer a dirty secret kept close to the chest. There is no imminent danger, nothing keeping them from being together.

“As soon as we’re out of here, I’m taking you on a date.” He proclaims, raising himself onto his forearms to kiss her brow. “Then you’re signing divorce papers so we can get married.”

Her eyes that had been closed in content snap open, terror and disbelief warring in them. She crawls into a sitting position, forcing him to lean back and sit on the opposite side of the bed. His fingers itch with the need to touch her, to comfort her through whatever’s terrifying her as much as she’ll let him.

“You don’t mean that.” The words are flat, bare-boned.

Concern spikes within him, “I do. All of it.”

“We can’t.” Her tone is definitive, as if there is no possibility at all. 

“Then we don’t have to get married,” He tries to shrug it off, as he always does. “But we’re going on that date.”

“Cassian.”

He reaches over and grabs her hand, carefully lacing his roughened hand through her soft one.  “Nesta Archeron,” Her name rolls off his tongue, as if he was  _ meant _ to say it. “I love you. I love every little, broken bit and piece. There is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.”

He’s never told her before, not with the nightmare that their lives had become, unable to steal away even a moment. 

She pulls her hand away from his and straightens her spine, raising her chin as the Nesta he’d first met appears. Her expression utterly shuts down, becoming the perfectly blank canvas that she’s never directed at him. It’s the only difference. 

Even in the beginning when they’d hated each other, she’d been true. She’d put away the white sheet and became something both vibrant and beautiful and dark and violent. 

“We can’t, Cassian.”

Something inside him breaks at her words, some part of him that tells him that they have to cherish the time they have before Tomas tears it away from them once again in the form of lawyers and paperwork.

That same part tells him that whatever it is that’ll limit their time is much worse than his love’s husband. 

A disbelieving breath escapes from him, taking all the words, all the arguments he wants to make with it—because he will always respect her decision, no matter the context. She is finally her own master and he won’t take that from her in any way. 

“Okay,” he concedes standing from his spot on the bed. “I understand.” It’s a struggle to get the words out when he doesn’t mean any of them. It’s not okay and he doesn’t understand, not in the slightest. 

Nesta refuses to look at him as he exits the room, shutting the door behind him without a sound. 

 

* * *

 

The first time it had happened, she hadn’t even known.

The nightmare has sunk its claws into her, latching onto and feeding off the memories that have buried themselves under layers of a complicated, archaic spell that had been cast on her. It tears through the confines of her mind and perverts the memories until she doesn’t recognize them, until there is not a single victory within them. 

This one is the worst. She knows this one will the worst, that it’ll never become worse than this. She knows. 

_ “Humor me.” _

She knows what happens, even if she doesn’t realize it. Dread curls in her gut and around her spine, locking it in place. 

_ Light and fire and water and darkness flows from her _ .

Every part of her is screaming—screaming and screaming and screaming. 

Stop stop stop stop.

_ It’s still in pieces, no more put together than it had been before _

STOP STOP STOP STOP.

_ She turns and he’s there. _

_ But he’s not. _

_ He’s not  _ there.

_ He’s not in her mind, hidden behind a wall of glittering ebony that laughs and smiles at her, that loves her until she can’t take it, that always pushes her but never breaks her, that always teaches her something new and wonderful, that cradles her and holds her when she does break.  _

_ He’s not  _ there.

_ He’s dead. _

“I’m right here, I’m right here,” He murmurs when Feyre chokes into consciousness, arms immediately moving into a maneuver she doesn’t remember to throw him off her. He gently catches her wrists in his hands before she can, repeating the words again.

“I’m right here, I’m right here, it’s just me.’”

It’s just another night of nightmares, another night of uncovering memories that pervert themselves into horrible, twisted terrors meant to remind her of how  _ awful _ they’d been, of how much more could’ve gone wrong. 

This time she’s not sure if it’s real or fabricated. If her mate had truly died for nothing, only to be reborn in another universe through an archaic spell cast by a male who’d had nearly no understanding of it. 

_ Mate _ .

The bond, which she had thought to be the tatters of the bargain, snaps into place stronger than before. The string pulls taut and she awakens. 

It’s not enough.

Her hands end in slashes of ice, tearing through the sheets and leaving trails of crackling frost behind as Rhys gently tugs her away from the nightmare—what couldn’t have been a memory. She knows that the Cauldron had not been fixed, he’d told her so. His death is a figment of her imagination, of the spell that cursed her to remember in the worst ways possible. 

His mind curls around hers, a soothing darkness brushing against the walls she’s unconsciously raised. It washes over her like waves, ebbs and flows with the tides. Her breaths slow and the ice begins to melt as she wraps her arms around his neck, pulling his forehead to hers. He’s still murmuring the same words.

“I’m right here, I’m right here.”

He’s here. He’s right in front of her, speaking and breathing. His heart is beating and their bond is alive, pulsing with both her terror and his comfort. It’s there. It’s tangible, His skin is warm against hers, not slowly cooling as he dies. He’s here. 

“It’s not real, right?” She croaks out, needing the confirmation. She asks the same question every night, and she knows he’ll always answer honestly, whether she wants to hear the answer or not. He will not coddle her. 

He doesn’t answer her, though the hesitance in his eyes is palpable. 

Her eyes widen, “Tell me it wasn’t real.” She begs, needing to hear it. She needs to know that he never died, that she had never cried over his corpse. She needs him to confirm it, to tell her that no, he did not die and that yes, everything was okay.

He shakes his head, though the movement is slow. 

She collapses into tears, her tears dripping onto his cheeks as cries and whimpers of pain escape her, arms tightening around him. 

He had died.

He had died.

And she had been left alone.

She’d been without him.

He had left her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> let's go back to the start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies!
> 
> 1) Before we even start I'm going to share a little spoiler: these next few chapters are going to very, very heavily be inspired by 'It Hurts to Become' by valamerys. It's one of my favorite fics on this site and I'm going to be pulling a lot from it. 
> 
> 2) Warning: Mild Body Horror
> 
> 3) I posted something that's NOT this! It's a oneshot called 'Wasteland' that I vomited out in one evening. It's Nessian centric featuring one of my most favorite OCs I've ever created. I'd love if you headed over and checked that out once you finish this.
> 
> 4) Please enjoy!!
> 
> \- Jade

_ Your voice follows like an echo _

_ Won’t someone wake me from this dream? _

_ The bluest skies turn to black clouds _

_ And the wind is drowning out my screams _

 

* * *

 

Mor just wants answers.

The bouts of visions have become more consistent, more harrowing since she met with Feyre and the other version of her cousin. She’ll see something—like a red dress or deep blue gems—and be assaulted by what Feyre’s told her to be memories of another life. The jilted, inconsistent explanations her best friend texts her almost make sense, but so many pieces are missing and she doesn’t know how to go on without at the very least looking for them.

It’s the reason she’s in the baggage claim of an airport in a city she’s never been to, attempting to use the high-tech vending machine to get herself one goddamn drink. She just wants a lemonade. It shouldn’t be so hard. Eventually, the bottle falls into the slot after the machine’s sucked away four and a half of her dollars—an utterly ridiculous amount for a single bottle of lemonade.  

The taste is just as unsatisfactory as the flight had been, she decides as she texts Feyre. They’re trying to figure out a place to meet, but neither of them knows the Twin Cities well. They eventually agree to meet at a Thai place in St. Paul that the Cassian she had yet to meet had apparently mentioned once. From the distance, she knows that the cab fare will be astronomical, but dammit, she wants a bowl of pho.

It’s just over a twenty-minute drive when the cab pulls up to the restaurant. It’s a small, obviously local establishment that excites her. She strolls into the place, the chimes twinkling above the door as she does, and immediately spots Feyre and Rhys sitting in a booth on the same side, hands intertwined and speaking lowly to each other.

Thank the lord. The eye-fucking they’d been doing a week ago had been too much for her—especially between her best friend and the guy that was some sort of reincarnation of her dead cousin. 

She gives a small wave to the hostess and sits on the opposite side of the booth, not missing the way the both of them back away but don’t detach. In fact, the grip only tightens. “I missed you,” She smiles, directing it at Feyre. Her eyes fall to the table, lighting with delight. “You got me an iced coffee!” She grins, mixing in the condensed milk with the straw.

Feyre’s smile is tight-lipped, “We haven’t gotten Thai in a while.” She absentmindedly stirs her own drink, the different colored jellies swirling in the coconut milk. Mor resists the urge to cringe—she’s never liked tricolor or boba. She’s always preferred her drinks to be just drinks.

They discuss their new findings, Rhys chiming in every once in awhile when they can’t get a certain memory together. They fill in the timeline Feyre’s been composing in her phone and discuss her sisters. 

By the time the food comes—Mor’s steaming bowl of pho, Feyre’s bowl of Kao-poon and Rhys’ plate of papaya salad—a radiant smile the blonde’s never associated with Feyre has bloomed across her face. Rhys almost dies eating the papaya, having specified a few too many peppers, and goes through four glasses of water before his face is anywhere near a normal color again.  

They’re rowdier than a group of teenage boys with no supervision, and Mor is positive that they’re gonna get themselves kicked out—especially when Feyre accidentally elbows Rhys’ boba off the table.  

Then Feyre’s phone rings.

Mor and Rhys are still making jokes and going back and forth, causing the blonde to miss Feyre’s growing look of concern. When the brunette sets her phone down on the table and they both look at her, it’s as if the entire room tenses.

“We have to get to Elain’s hotel room.”

 

* * *

 

Azriel’s used to pain, but this is new.

It lashes across his back in waves, a strangled, near silent groan escaping him as he’s yanked from his previously peaceful sleep. Somewhere in the background, he can hear the sound of the shower in the hotel room going, and given the fact that the queen bed adjacent to his is empty, he can only assume it’s Elain. 

He resists the urge to claw at his bare back and turns onto his stomach, the only sign he’s in any pain being that his fists are white-knuckled around the pillows. He doesn’t even realize he’d using the same breathing method he had used as a child until the bathroom door creaks open and he stops, attempting to center his breaths in an attempt to seem asleep once again.

It fails, of course, when Elain timidly calls his name, concern etched in the word. He can only see the pair of jeans she’s wearing—light wash with rips in the knees, the same ones from the day they’d flown out—when she approaches, laying the back of her hand across his forehead. “What’s wrong?” She frowns, pulling her hand away when she finds no fever, only a thin sheen of sweat. 

Her eyes fall onto his back and widen, shock and something akin to horror in them. “Oh my goodness,” She gasps, stumbling back. Her hands fumble for her phone, which had been charging on the nightstand. He shuts his eyes with the pain, no longer trying to hide it now that she’s noticed. He makes out snippets of the conversation, though not enough to realize who she’s talking to. 

He hears her set the phone down and feels the bed bend when she sits on it. He cracks his eyes open to stare at her, noting that her hair is still wet and without any flowers in it. His eyes shut once again when she starts to comb her fingers through his short hair, the soothing gesture a nice distraction from the pain. 

She starts to speak to him and he forces himself to focus long enough to process what she’s saying. “Rhys and Feyre are coming. They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.” 

He nods once, another wave of pain washing over him.

“ _ You get them in and out again, shadowsinger. I don’t care how many of them you have to kill to do it. They both come out.” _

_ “I swear it, High Lord.” _

He recognizes his own voice in the answer, though it’s colder—a hard determination laced in the words that he doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t recognize the formal words nor the title he’s addressed with. At least, not at first.

Shadowsinger.

A bell rings within him, a big blinking sign going off that proclaims ‘LOOK HERE’. He can’t tell where it points, only that it’s to the scattered pieces of what he now knows to be memories he’s been carefully gathering and sorting through with Elain the past day or so.

“ _ Grab onto him!” _

It’s Elain’s voice, commanding and filled with desperation.

“ _ If you want to live, do it now!” _

He manages to tear himself away long enough to hear Elain talking to Rhys, desperately asking his brother what was happening. He feels Rhys’ hands on his back, a warmth radiating from them as he runs them over his skin in a clinical fashion. He sees Feyre’s silhouette and another person with tumbling blonde hair. If he had still believed in them, he would’ve thought her an angel.

_ He has wings. Something’s clawed through them. He’s carrying two people—Elain and a young girl—and flying. The only thing keeping him from falling is pure will and some sort of magic. It hurts. It doesn’t hurt as much as the thought of what he knows will happen if he fails.  _

Someone places a hand on his forehead, a warmth different from the one on his back emanating off of it.

He tumbles off into sleep, plagued by perverted nightmares.

Or memories. He can’t tell the difference anymore.

 

* * *

 

Cassian can’t breathe.

The threadbare apartment he technically presides in hasn’t been occupied in months. He’d been spending all his time at the mansion, protecting Nesta.

The remembrance of her name makes the pain worse.

He claws the soft t-shirt he’d thrown on earlier off of him, launching it somewhere across the room before reaching around his back, trying to find the source of the pain. It emanates from just underneath his shoulder blades, the skin pulsing as if it’s about to pulse open. 

His searching hands find something that most definitely shouldn’t be there.

Two bumps, roughly half the length of his spine, protrude from just beside it. He can almost feel whatever’s in them moving and forming, utterly unnatural and not of this world. His first instinct is to call Nesta, only for him to quickly throw that option out the window. His second thought is to call Rhiannon, but his foster sister doesn’t need to know that his life has turned into a poorly plotted TV show with sudden, unexplained magic and a weird chick who holds all the knowledge.

Amren.

He’s only met her twice, maybe another time, but she’s the only one besides Feyre who seems to be willing to tell anyone what’s happening. He supposes that he could also call Rhysand, but he’s not sure if he wants to confront his brother with this.

When had he started referring to the stranger as his brother?

The thought quickly washes away with the rest of him as another wave of pain carries over him. His training from the military is the only thing that gives him the ability to even get out of bed and grab his phone, dialing the new contact that the silver-eyed woman had forcefully put in a few days before.

She answers with a curt, annoyed  _ What?  _ before he starts spitting out obscenities and attempts at describing the pain he’s in. She asks a few questions and he attempts to answer them before she swears—the filthiest thing he’s ever heard, which is quite a feat—and hangs up.

Not even a moment later he can hear his front door snap open, alarming him enough that the burst of adrenaline overrides the pain and allows him to move into the hall. It’s only Amren, having somehow appeared out of nowhere, though he’s in no position to ask how when he doubles over again. 

She mumbles something under her breath that he doesn’t comprehend before lifting one of his arms over her shoulder and, in an alarming show of strength, drags him out onto the untouched, still new couch and unceremoniously drops him on it, stomach down.

  When she places her hands on his back Cassian nearly turns over and restrains her wrists out of pure instinct, only for her to bat him away like a child and return her hands to where she had originally placed them—directly over the bumps.  She pushes and prods at them with clinical efficiency and complete disregard for his comfort. 

“You’re growing wings.” She announces, backing away and perching herself on the coffee table. “You’ll truly be the same bastard from before again soon enough.”

“What?” He spits out, turning to face her. “Wings?”

“Yes, wings.” She deadpans, obviously not amused. “You weren’t born with them this time, so you get to grow them. I’ll have the Emissary come over to watch you once she’s been discharged.”

He’s not sure what she means by Emissary, but he can tell she’s talking about Nesta. “No. Don’t.” He can only get out a few words at a time with the pain. “Just… grab me some pain—” He has to grit his teeth with a new wave, “—painkillers.”

“Suit yourself.” She states as a bottle of said painkillers stutters slowly into existence beside her. He pretends not to notice the bead of sweat that drips down her temple. “Call if you need anything.”

With that she breezes out of the room, leaving as if she had never been there. He can almost hear his teeth grinding together as he reaches over to grab the bottle, cracking it open and chucking two of the pills in his mouth. 

He shuts the bottle and drops it onto the carpet, resting his brow on his forearm. His eyes flutter shut with the pain. A groan does escape his lips this time.

_ “I have no regrets in this life, but this. That I did not have that time with  _ you _ , Nesta.” _

_ “I will find you again in the next world—the next life. And we will have that time. I promise.”  _

His eyes snap open, the memory barreling over him.

He had still loved her; even in another life, another time. 

The thought is enough to make him close his eyes, willing sleep to take him once again.

It doesn’t, of course.

He’s not sure how long he lies there, the box of memories that he’s had since the supposed spell had been cast now thrown open. A life lived five hundred years floods through him—from sleeping in the dirt of the Illyrian training camp to fighting in the First War, from leading the armies to brawling with his brother in the mud after he’d returned from his romantic cabin getaway, from bickering with Nesta to what he thought would be his last moments with her.

He manages to grab his phone, opening his messages and typing up two. The first is to Feyre, asking to meet with her and Rhys. The second one is to Nesta.

_ I did promise I’d find you in the next life, sweetheart. We can have that time. _

His finger hovers over the send button, hesitant. 

In the end, he supposes it doesn’t matter.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it settles between her bones and in her veins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> 1) I apologize for disappearing. I got smacked in the face with both homework and writer's block. I still don't like this chapter, as a matter of fact. It's just filler for the most part. Next chapter'll get good. Promise.
> 
> 2) It's Halloween!!!!! Happy Halloween everyone.
> 
> 3) I volunteered at a homeless shelter today and idk my perspective has changed a bit. I just wanted to add that for some reason.
> 
> Please enjoy!  
> \- Jade

 

 

 

_I will surrender tonight_

_Before we both lose this fight_

_Take my defenses, all my defenses_

_I lay down this armor for you_

 

* * *

 

Nesta’s unprepared for the text.

She can only stare at it, reading it over and over again as if it’ll change the contents of it. It had arrived in the process of her changing into the bag of clothes Cassian had brought a week or so ago from his apartment—the outfit she’d stashed there in case of emergencies.

She leaves the sweatshirt that smells like his cologne in the bag.

It’s the most casual outfit she’s worn in years—a soft t-shirt and a pair of black leggings—but it’s the most comforting. She’s shed the life of dresses and immaculate jewelry, leaving it far behind with the ring she’d pawned off online.

_Cassian’s apartment ASAP_

It’s from Feyre, in a tone far more assertive then she’d ever expected from her youngest sibling. It seems that Rhysand had truly brought out a different side of her—presumably the one that governed an entire country; or court. Whatever they were called.

Her Uber is already out front when she exits the hospital, a simple Prius with black seats. It’s certainly nothing fancy, and so refreshing from the countless sports cars and limos she’d been stuffed into that her tensed shoulders drop.

By the time she arrives, Feyre has still refused to give away any information over text or even call. She insists that Nesta be there in person, but the thought of walking into Cassian’s apartment makes her sick. She’s only been in there a few times, but those few times had been rather… memorable.

She lets her hair curtain the nauseated look on her face as she knocks on the door labeled 93F. When it opens, it’s to a stressed-out, rumpled looking Rhys. He just sighs in relief when he sees her, “Oh, thank the Cauldron.” He doesn’t say anything else, only walking back into the apartment and leaving the door open behind him.

Her eyes widen at the sounds of muffled screaming coming from down the hall.

She nearly knocks Rhys over as she sprints for the bedroom, slamming the door open and coming to a screeching halt inside the doorway.

She’s greeted with a sight equally terrifying and impossible.

Feyre’s standing over Cassian, hands trailing along his back that glow with a yellow light that defied all logic. Two monstrous bumps protrude from his skin, the grinding of his teeth nearly audible as she runs towards him.

She skirts around Feyre and falls to her knees beside Cassian, running her fingers repeatedly through his hair as he screams. Nesta can’t imagine the pain he’s in, she doesn’t want to. Even after Tomas had nearly shot him he had barely even grunted in pain. It tears her in half.

She loops an arm over his neck and presses her forehead to his as if her touch alone can heal him. She turns her head towards her sister after a moment. “What the fuck is going on?” She demands.

Feyre moves away from her spot when Rhys gently pushes her away and resumes whatever it is she was doing, though his hands swirl black instead of yellow. Her youngest sister uses the back of her hand to wipe the sweat off her forehead before answering. “Cass and Az are both growing wings—the ones they used to have before the spell.” She gasps in between breaths. Nesta notes the fact that Feyre’s entire body glows with a yellow sunshine-like light. She decides not to comment.

“Why’s he in so much pain?” She asks again as Cassian reaches for her hand and squeezes, nearly shattering her fingers. She can’t bring herself to care if he does.

“The growth is… it’s ungodly. Amren said that they’re growing at around two inches an hour. Cassian’s wingspan used to be over fifteen feet. We’re not sure when we’ll have to pull them out, but this’ll take at least four days and that’s if the growth doesn’t slow. We’re trying to subdue the pain, but human remedies aren’t working and it seems the pain just wakes him when we try to knock him out. Amren’s with Az. His are growing in faster and he has an even larger wingspan.”

“Mine’s still the biggest.” Rhys cuts in, winking at Feyre with an inside joke Nesta doesn’t understand. Feyre simply swats at his arm in exasperation, though a little smile is evident on her face. “You know it’s true, darling.”

“This is serious, Rhys.” Her sister reprimands, even though there’s not true chastisement in her tone. She turns back to Nesta. “Thing is we can’t be here with him the entire four days. There are other things Rhys and I have to do if we want to ever go back home, and we need to do it now before we run out of time.”

“So you’re just going to _leave_ him here like this?” Nesta spits out, nearly standing in her anger. “In this much pain?”

“The pain he’s going through isn’t going to be worth anything if we don’t get the Book,” Rhys says. “If we get trapped here, then the wings become nothing more than a liability that’ll get him locked up for experimentation by the gov—” He looks towards Feyre with a helpless expression.

“Government,” Feyre supplies.

“—Yeah. That.”

“I still don’t understand. What book?” She turns her head back to Cassian, who’s staring at her with some sort of desperation she doesn’t recognize. It’s revitalized as if he’s looking at her for the first time. She can’t even question him about it.

“What do you remember from before?” Feyre’s loud, insistent tone surprises her. It’s something she’d never thought she’d hear from her timid sister.

“Not… not much. Little snippets.”

“The Book of Breathings holds the spell that brought us here. We’re hoping it also has the counterspell to get us back,” Rhys interrupts, still standing over Cassian’s back with his hands glowing black. “Damnit. Feyre, darling, will you come help me?” He grits out, “I can’t get the left one to sit right.”

Nesta tunes out Feyre’s response and focuses back on her ex… ex-something. She can’t bring herself to contemplate the strangeness of their relationship when he’s in so much pain. She carefully covers his lips with hers, if only for a moment.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.” She murmurs, repeating it over and over again. She gently runs her fingers through his long hair, wishing she could take some of the pain for him. Maybe, maybe she needs him more than she wants to admit. Maybe, maybe he had been a lifeline in the middle of the ocean she’d been drowning in. Maybe, _maybe_ she had gotten used to the water that filled her lungs and had let him go.

She doesn’t know how to need him, or how to love him like he deserves.

All she can do is hold him.

 

* * *

 

It’s hard to breathe.

She can feel her head getting cloudy, hands shaking as they glow with a sunlight she doesn’t truly recognize. The look on Rhys’ face had been enough to tell her what she’d needed to know—that this was one of her powers from before. He’d told her snippets in between their turns of setting Cassian’s wings, of the time she’d saved his life with her blood. That was one story she wasn’t intending to relive. Rhys had then said that since she had been born mortal, her blood was likely void of magic in this world. The relieved sigh that’d escaped her had been hard to ignore.

The careful maneuvering of the wings growing and incubating underneath Cassian’s skin is harder than she had originally thought it. They grow at an alarming rate. As soon as she’s moved them to be in their proper place, they’re bent out again. It’s an exhausting battle that can’t be won and yet needs to be fought.

The assertiveness she addresses Nesta with is new to her, the strong words feeling foreign on her tongue. She supposes that it’s Rhys that instills that strength in her, with all his soft looks and encouraging smiles. Her sister kneels beside Cassian, muttering things she can’t hear into his ear.

“Feyre,” Her eyes, which had fallen closed, snap wide open at the sound of her name. Rhys looks at her with his own subtle exhaustion. “Take a nap. Eat something.”

She immediately opens her mouth to protest, to insist that she’s fine and that she can keep going and that she _has_ to keep going—

All the arguments fall away when Rhys tilts his head and raises a single eyebrow.

She sighs, “Fine. I’ll order takeout for all of us. I think we can take a break for a few minutes to eat as long as Nesta’s here.”

Her feet carry her over to him, where she plants a small, timid kiss on his jaw. It’s hard to ignore the way his breath hitches. “I’m going to take a quick power nap after I call. Wake me when the food gets here.”

He nods and she directs one last smile at him before exiting the room, grabbing her phone and pulling up the saved number for their favorite Chinese takeout. Sad, maybe, but cheap and effective.

She makes the order as she reorients her hair, attempting to slick back the baby hairs with a little bit of water and perseverance. They had kept getting in the way earlier and driving her crazy.

When the order’s made she tucks her phone into the back pocket of her paint-stained jeans, washing her hands under the warm water out of pure habit.

_Two pairs of hands in the sink, soothing words passing from her lips as she washes the blood from beneath his nails._

The back of her hand slams into the faucet with the sudden memory, a small swear slipping out as the skin throbs. Her mind scrambles to place the little snippet within the timeline in her head, knowing that she’ll just have to ask Rhys about it. She has no doubt the second pair of hands were his. Whose else would they be?

She knows that the water isn’t actually running red, but it seems her mind’s playing tricks on her. It’s hard to ignore the fact that she’s exhausted, both from how extraneous she hadn’t realized magic was and how whirlwind her past week had been.

Her entire body aches as she walks to the couch in the living room, the faux leather cooling on her overheated skin. Immediately she lies down, facing inward and curling up.

Sleep carries her away, filled with memories of water wolves and water droplets filtering into stars.

 

* * *

 

Elain’s not sure why she’s crying.

Amren and the blonde woman who’d introduced herself as Mor stand over Azriel, murmuring to each other and doing... Whatever it is they’re doing.

The feeling of uselessness lingers with her, small, silent tears falling as she runs her fingers through his hair, his head perched in her lap. All she can do is provide comfort, attempt to give him some distraction from the pain.

He had done so much for her, even before they’d become some sort of reincarnated magical faeries, and there was so little she could do for him. It pained her.

His scarred hands curl around the sheet of the bed, knuckles turning white, a grunt escaping from him every so often. All Rhys had told her was that Az was growing wings of some sort before jetting off.

It was infuriating—being left out of the loop. Even if it wasn’t necessary, she still would’ve liked to know what was going on. Little, inconsistent tears drip down her face and slide down her neck into the fabric of her shirt.

Az half turns his face to look up at her, hazel eyes flashing with concern. One of the hands shakily reaches up and wipes away a tear with a surprising tenderness, given the circumstances. She turns her hand to the side and plants a kiss on the inside of his hand in thanks.

As soon as she does his eyes fall shut and his hand falls slack once more, though he seems to curl a little tighter around her. Elain’s not sure why, maybe he finds her a grounding presence through the pain, but it’s not as though she could deny him. He was in so much pain. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to help him in that moment.

The blonde woman—Mor, she has to remind herself—swipes the back of her hand across her forehead, flicking away the perspiration. She fixes her eyes on Azriel, a puzzled look settling its way onto her features. “What was his name again?”

Elain doesn’t even have it in her to be the slightest bit annoyed, “Azriel.”

Mor’s brow furrows, even as she ducks her head down again and begins to do whatever she’s doing to the left bump on his back, hands glowing yellow. “How did I already know that?” She mutters, blonde curls bobbing as she shakes her head once as if it’ll clear the clouds of memories in her head. Elain knows how she’s feeling. She feels the exact same way.

“War camp. Autumn Court. Eris.”

It’s the first words he’s spoken since she’d found him half delirious and riddled with pain that morning. Elain immediately shushes him, carding her fingers through his hair again. He speaks anyways.

“Five hundred years. We were…” He grunts in pain, “...friends for five hundred years.”

The golden light from Mor glows a little brighter as if her power was strengthening with the memories he brought forth.

“Yes… Of course. How could I have forgotten?” Mor scoffs, as if in disbelief that she could ever forget such a thing, even though she’d had no recollection of it mere moments ago. There’s a new clarity in her eyes as if a fog had been lifted.

Loneliness piles itself on top of the uselessness in Elain’s throat, threatening to stop her breath and stifle her heart. It’s nothing new, that’s for certain.

She’d just never thought she’d feel it around Az.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my Tumblr (it's all reblogs): feyreofthewildfire  
> Please remember to leave kudos and maybe a comment!! I tend to word vomit and reveal a lot more then I should when I reply to comments oops.  
> Have a lovely, lovely rest of your day!


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